Thursday, January 29, 2009
Competencies assessment moves centre stage
The assessment of 21st Century Competencies was announced as a key priority at the Learning and Teaching World Forum in London
For many years now, the inability to assess competencies cost effectively and accurately at scale has been described as one of the main barriers to transforming education internationally. At the Learning and Teaching World Forum attended by ministries of education from over eighty countries a plan was announced that will attempt to create solutions to this problem.
Key organisations in the field of international assessment comparisons, PISA and TIMSS announced they were teaming up with CISCO, INTEL and MICROSOFT to investigate the following key questions.
- Which high priority 21st Century competencies should be assessed?
- What methods of assessment could be used?
- How would the classroom environment need to change to support such assessments?
- What technology infrastructure will be necessary to support such assessments?
- How can countries engage in partnership to arrive at common solutions?
Different views around how competencies could be assessed were expressed with some favouring the exploration of computerised assessment whilst others felt this could not work. Andreas Schleicher from the OEDC delivered the following argument in his presentation.
If an algorithm can be written that can allow a computer to assess a competence, then that same computer can also replace jobs requiring that competence. This makes the competence useless to future learners in terms of employment.
The conclusion to this logic is surely if computers can't assess valuable competencies then it should be people who do and in order to scale this we need many more assessors. Structured and qualified peer assessment possibly?
During the Learning and Teaching World Forum event Personalisation by Pieces was cited twice by presenters as an innovation that has moved this debate comprehensively forward.