Mastery Transcript Consortium Hopes to Change the Relationship Between Preparation for College and College Admissions for the Betterment of Students

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NYSAIS – May 8, 2018 A Conversation about Teaching & Learning 186 MTC Member Schools

(not shown) Nineteen international schools and six in Hawaii Founding Schools

The Blake School Mounds Park Academy The Buckley School The Nueva School Catlin Gabel School Riverdale Country School Choate Rosemary Hall Punahou School Hawken School Sage Hill School Indian Springs School San Francisco University High School The Island School The Spence School Latin School of Chicago Tilton School Marin Academy Wildwood School Mar Members All Saints’ Episcopal School The Brookstone School Allen Academy Brunswick School The Altamont School The Bush School American International School – Riyadh Campbell Hall American International School Chennai Cannon School American School of Bombay Carrollwood Day School American School of Dubai Cary Academy Asheville School Cascades Academy The Athenian School Castilleja School The Bay School of San Francisco Chadwick International Bentley School Chadwick School The Berkeley Carroll School Chapel Hill – Chauncy Hall School The Branson School The Chapin School Brooks School Charles Wright Academy Members Christchurch School Forsyth Country Day School Christian Brothers College High School The Galloway School The College Preparatory School Gann Academy Colegio Bolivar The Geneva School Colorado Academy Gilman School Concordia International School Shanghai Global Online Academy Cranbrook Schools Graded – The American School of Sao Paulo Crystal Springs Uplands School Grand River Academy The Dalton School The Grauer School Delphian School Greens Farms Academy Drew School Greenwood College School Dunn School The Harbour School Ensworth School The Harpeth Hall School Episcopal High School Head-Royce School Flintridge Preparatory School The Hewitt School Members

The Hill School Lake School The Hockaday School Lakeside School Holderness School Laurel School Holton-Arms School Lawrence School The Independent School of Winchester Lincoln School Nepal Island Pacific Academy Little Red School House and Journeys School of Teton Science Schools Elisabeth Irwin High School Kamehameha School – Maui The Lovett School Kent Place School Malvern Preparatory School Khan Lab School Maumee Valley Country Day School King School The Masters School King’s Academy Menlo School Laguna Blanca School The Miami Valley School Lake Forest Academy Mid-Pacific Institute Members Midland School Oregon Episcopal School Milton Academy Parish Episcopal School Miss Porter’s School Park Tudor School Mount Vernon Presbyterian School Phillips Academy Newton Country Day School Phillips Exeter Academy of the Sacred Heart Phoenix Country Day School NGL Academy, Omaha Pingree School NGL Academy, Santa Rosa Pius XI High School Noble and Greenough School Polytechnic School North Shore Country Day School Pomfret School Northfield Mount Hermon School Portledge School The Northwest School The Principia The Ocean School Putney School One Schoolhouse Ransom Everglades School Members Rowland Hall University High School of Indiana Rutgers Preparatory School University Liggett School Sacred Heart Preparatory University Preparatory Academy (WA) San Domenico School University School of Nashville Singapore American School Urban School of San Francisco St. Francis Episcopal School Watershed School St. George’s Independent School (TN) Westridge School St. John’s School (TX) Westtown School St. Luke’s School (CT) Winchester Thurston School The Stone Independent School Windward School Stuart Hall School The Winsor School Tahoe Exhibition Academy Woodlawn School The Thacher School Woodside Priory School Thaden School Wooster School Additional MTC Interest

Independent schools expressing interest 300+

Public schools (or districts) expressing interest 150+ The MTC is a (14 month old) movement but part of a much larger movement

Public School District Examples OUR STORY Scott Looney

MTC Executive Director – Stacy Caldwell The Princeton Review 2016 - Present Chief Product Officer The College Board 2010 - 2016 Vice President of College Readiness Assessment Vice President of District & Student Services Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions 2002 - 2010 Vice President Instructional Technology Vice President Educational Affairs Director of Business Affairs Regional Manager Bain and Company 1998 - 2001 Consultant/Team Leader Arthur Anderson Consulting 1993 - 1995 Analysist/Consultant Education: A.B. Harvard University , Economics – Magna Cum Laude, 1993 M.A. Stanford University, Education, 1998 M.B.A. Stanford University, 1998 17

MTC Advisory Council (A-H) MTC Advisory Council (H-Z) You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Buckminster Fuller THIS IS NOT A TWEAK Vision

This MTC model calls for students to demonstrate a mastery of skills, knowledge and habits of mind by presenting evidence that is then assessed against an institutionally specific standard of mastery. Vision The MTC model is substantively different from the traditional model of assessment that is typically organized around content oriented courses, Carnegie units for credit and A to F letter grades.

The MTC model is organized around performance areas (rather than academic departments), mastery standards and micro-credits (rather than letter grades). Each micro-credit applied to a transcript signifies mastery of a specific skill, knowledge block or habit of mind as defined by the crediting high school. Vision The MTC schools will be supported by a technology platform that allows the complete record of a student’s credits, institutional standards and performance evidence to be submitted to college admission offices for evaluation. This electronic Mastery Transcript allows college admission officers to dive deep within a transcript to see the specific standards of the sending high school and actual evidence of student work and mastery, thus giving depth and transparency to the student’s work record. Vision

The Mastery Transcript Consortium hopes to change the relationship between preparation for college and college admissions for the betterment of students. The Idea: All students should have an opportunity to engage in deep, mastery-based learning.

The Tool: The MTC is building an interactive, digital transcript that will showcase authentic student achievement. It will also reveal the transformational work so many schools have already undertaken with their curriculum and pave the way for many more schools who are beginning that journey.

The Network: The power of the MTC is our network. By expanding the Consortium to an ever-wider group of public and private schools, we will help grow the movement, foster a conversation with higher-ed institutions, and ensure that together we create meaningful solutions. Mastery: A Definition

“Mastery is effective transfer of learning in authentic and worthy performance. Students have mastered a subject when they are fluent, even creative, in using their knowledge, skills, and understanding in key performance challenges and contexts at the heart of that subject, as measured against valid and high standards.” Grant Wiggins The Apprenticeship Model • Connects learning to the real world • Individualizes pace of learning • Individualizes approach of learning • Is “MASTERY” based vs. “TIME” based • Creates incremental success, not winners and losers • Exposes students to complexity • Is ACTIVE learning, not PASSIVE The Paradigm Shifts Enabled by the MTC

Teacher as judge Teacher as guide/coach

Breadth (mostly content) Depth (beyond just content)

Only a few paths for students Many more paths

One fixed pace, set by teacher Pace set by student needs May 1984 Benjamin Bloom 1984 The MyWays Project from Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) The MyWays Project from the NGLC Knowledge

Character

Skills Only when kids get in trouble

What if…. the current educational model is an aberration in human history? What if…Modern Education is Unnatural Natural: • Student curiosity…seek learning • Students wanting to do, create, build and collaborate • Students wanting guidance from older people

Unnatural: • Teachers talking, students passively listening • Standardization of expectations and assessment • Achievement on the clock…not to individual mastery • No room for student agency (choice) Six Steps to a Dangerous Paradigm 1. The Committee of Ten: College Presidents tell high schools what to teach, emphasizing content knowledge. (1894) 2. The letter grades are introduced by Mount Holyoke College. (1897) 3. Frederick Winslow Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management. (1911) 4. Edward Thorndike embraces Taylorism, refitting that theory for education then publishing, An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurement. (1913) 5. The first multiple choice test – Kansas Silent Reading Test (1914) 6. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is formed, adopting the multiple choice format for admissions to selective colleges. (1926)

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7129384M/Report_of_the_Committee_of_ten_on_secondary_school_studies

The New Education – Cathy Davidson

People who say “higher education hasn’t changed since Socrates Academy two thousand years ago” have it wrong. The modern American university is only about 150 years old.

Basically, the infrastructure, curriculums, and assessment methods we have now were developed between 1860 and 1925. The New Education – Cathy Davidson Educators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries developed the educational measurements we use today.

Grades, statistics, standard deviation, regression from the mean, bell curves, IQ tests, admission exams and timed and standardized multiple choice tests were all new ways of assessing academic inputs and outputs, of distinguishing what kinds of intelligence, aptitude and achievement counted and what kinds did not. 0:23 to 5:55 The Ergodic Switch

According to Ergodic Theory (a branch of statistics) you are only allowed to use a group average to make predictions about individuals if two conditions are true: 1. Every member of the group is identical and,

2. Every member of the group will remain the same in the future

45 46 Absurdities • US News and World Rankings “Atrocities”

• Student Pressure/Mental Health • Disconnect between learning and passion • Extrinsic rewards privileged over intrinsic • Focus on short term memory recall (content regurgitation) • Excellent Sheep…(fear of failure/perfectionism)

Why not just adjust the current grading system instead of going to all this work? “The experiment started by the faculty five years ago must be pronounced a complete failure. And both students and faculty have before now felt it to be a failure. There is no uniformity of grading, but the greatest divergence. It has come to be admitted openly that a student who is anxious to win honors must be careful to elect his work under certain teachers and avoid others as much as possible.”

Max Meyer, The Grading of Students published in Science in 1908. Quotes from Degrading to De-grading High School Magazine, March 1999 Alfie Kohn Grades tend to reduce students’ interest in the learning itself. (Beck et al., 1991; Milton et al., 1986; Benware and Deci, 1984; Butler, 1987; Butler and Nisan, 1986; Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Hughes et al., 1985; Kage, 1991; Salili et al., 1976).

Grades tend to reduce students’ preference for challenging tasks. (Harter, 1978; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Kage, 1991; Milton et al., 1986)

Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking. (Butler, 1987; Butler, 1988; Butler and Nisan, 1986; Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Anderman and Johnston, 1998). Quotes from Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite William Deresiewicz

“In 1960, the average GPA at private universities was about 2.5. In 1990, it was about 3.1. In 2007, it was 3.3 and at highly selective private colleges it was 3.43.”

“In 1940, 15 percent of the grades (at private colleges) fell within the A range; in 2008 the number was almost 45 percent.” Grade Inflation

% of Grades that are A's 55 50 Hawken INDEX Mean 45 40 35 30 25 20 Quotes from Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite William Deresiewicz

Convening a task force on student mental health in 2006, Stanford’s provost wrote that “increasingly, we are seeing students struggling with mental health concerns, ranging from self-esteem issues and developmental disorders to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-mutilation behaviors…and suicidal behavior.” ………. Harry R. Lewis, a former dean of Harvard College, “too many students, perhaps after a year or two spent using college as a treadmill to nowhere, wake up in crisis, not knowing why they have worked so hard.” NAIS 2013: A SNAPSHOT OF OUR STUDENT BODY THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL HEALTH CHECK 14,424 upper school students in 44 schools (23 day/21 boarding)

1% 10% 30% Academic Pressure

59%

Low Moderate High Extreme Students in Crisis Merely the Tip of the Iceberg 57 Sub-clinical Concerns Pervasive, Troubling for Independent Schools

Below the Surface, Many More …And it’s Keeping You Up at Students Struggling… Night

Small group of highly visible students in crisis 88% Proportion of independent school heads Stressed citing anxiety as common student Larger wellness issue group of students Disengaged struggling to cope with day-to-day demands Overwhelmed and 49% expectations Proportion of independent school heads citing depression as major student Constantly “on-the-go” health challenge

“2016 NAIS-NSCC-Winston Prep Wellness Survey for Independent Schools”, NAIS; EAB interviews and analysis External Stressor #2: College Admissions Stress

More Applications Increases Competition 58 More Students Apply to More Schools, Selectivity at Top Schools Increases

Students Expand College Lists to …Making their Targeted Schools Even Secure a Spot… More Selective

Students applying to 7+ schools Average admissions rate of top 10 selective colleges

29% 2005 2016

1990 2016 17.7% 7.2%

The Catch-22 of College Admissions “Kids see that the admit rates are brutal and dropping, and it looks more like a crapshoot. So, they send more apps, which forces the colleges to lower their admit rates, which spurs the kids next year to send even more apps.”

Bruce Poch,Bruch Former Poch, Dean Former of Admissons Dean of ,Admissions, Pomona College Pomona College The way high schools must measure students and present them for college admission is a key impediment to high school curriculum change.

We need an alternative model of assessment, crediting and, ultimately, a new transcript. A Solution for Our Time The Mastery Transcript = Credit De-coupling DISCONNECTING CREDITS

 from Time (The Carnegie Unit)

 from Courses (Content Labeled Courses)

 from a Specific Teacher (Grade given by one teacher)

CONNECTING CREDITS

 to the assessment of a student’s best work (against institutional standard)

 to the aggregated opinions and feedback of all teachers (portfolio) What’s Different in this model?

• Transcript is DIGITAL, LAYERED and SEARCHABLE

• NO GRADES or numerical equivalent

• NO TIME requirement for the earning of a credit

• Standards are INSTITUTIONAL STANDARDS. Our Transcript…

Will Won’t • Be readable in under two minutes • Have letter grades or the numerical equivalent • Differentiate the strengths of students at a given school • Standardize credits across schools

• Show the shape of a student well • Allow a student to also send a traditional transcript Mastery Credits

Mastery Credits are in some overlapping areas: • Knowledge (Content) • Skills • Mindsets, Habits (Character, Habits of Mind)

Credits will have TWO different levels: • Foundational Mastery Credits (Graduation Requirements) • Advanced Mastery Credits Each of the credit areas includes two types of Mastery Credits: Foundational Mastery Credits include evidence of learning including some level of transfer and must be earned prior to graduation.

Advanced Mastery Credits require extended engagement and more significant evidence of transfer.

All enrolled students must present evidence that they have met the Foundational Mastery Credits before graduation. All students are also expected to earn some, but not all, of the available Advanced Mastery Credits offered by the school. For Example…. 5. Self-Directed Learning

Sample Foundational Mastery Credits a. Goal-Setting and Adaptation: Student can consistently sets goals for learning tasks, monitors their progress towards the goal, and adapts their approach as needed to successfully complete a task or solve a novel, complex, and/or real world problem. b. Persistence: Student can persist through difficulties, delay gratification, refocus after distractions, and maintain momentum until they reach their goal, use failures and setbacks as opportunities for feedback and apply lessons learned to improve future efforts. c. Mastery Mindset: Student cares about the quality of work and put in extra effort to do things thoroughly, uses growth and mastery mindset strategies effectively, and continues looking for new ways to learn challenging material or solve difficult problems. 5. Self-Directed Learning

Sample Advanced Mastery Credits d. Agility in Ambiguity: Student can demonstrate flexibility, agility, and adaptability when undertaking complex tasks, can work effectively in a climate of ambiguity and changing priorities, and can view failure as an opportunity to learn, and acknowledge that innovation involves small successes and frequent mistakes. e. Curation and Reflection: Student can curate thoughtfully a portfolio of one’s learning and able to effectively reflect on one’s own evidence of learning--to self-assess work in order to determine what is learned and what needs to be learned. f. PLUS more additional Advanced Mastery Credits What are the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that students should master?

A school might choose “mastery credit areas” that are something like….. • Creativity • Critical Thinking • Communication • Collaboration • Self-Directed Learning • Humanities and Arts • Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Mastery Credits

Mastery Credit Area M M M M

M M M M Beyond HS College Level + M M M M

M M M M M M M M M M M M

M M M M M M M M M M M M 12th Graduation

M M M Requirements Upper Classman Level M M M M

M 11th M M M M M M M

M M M M M M M M M M M 10th Under Classman Level

M M M 9th M M M M M

Knowledge Skills Credits = 70 (Academic, Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Content Character, Habits of Mind…) M = Earned by All M = Earned by Some Transcript Models DISCLAIMER The MTC Model is Not Built Yet…

• All models and examples are early stage concepts at this point.

• The illustrations and models to follow are purely to give a directional understanding and to spark conversation and collaboration.

Joseph Smith ‘18

TEACHER COMMENTS: CREATIVITY

Query Writer Colorado College Portfolio Reports

Technology Platform Flow

Marlyn McGrath, Harvard University’s director of admissions: “In cases where we need additional information, we typically ask for it. So we are not concerned that students presenting alternative transcripts will be disadvantaged because of format.” 67 New England Colleges Signed Agreement

“Students with non-traditional transcripts—including ‘proficiency- based’ or ‘competency-based’ transcripts—will not be disadvantaged in any way during the admissions process. Colleges and universities simply do not discriminate against students based on the academic program and policies of the sending school, as long as those program and policies are accurately presented and clearly described.” Colleges Include: • Babson • University of Connecticut • Bowdoin • University of Maine System • Connecticut College • University of New Hampshire • Dartmouth • University of Rhode Island • Harvard • University of Vermont • M.I.T • Wellesley • Tufts Mastery Transcript Design Process PHASE I: ● Recruitment of a large group of schools (more members, stronger voice) ● Secure initial funding ● Development of the prototype for early pilots ● Consulting with college admission deans and college presidents

PHASE II: ● Platform development & collaboration with pilot schools and colleges ● Expand to include public school members

PHASE III: ● More schools start to offer the Mastery Transcript (perhaps for new students or as an option for students/families) ● College admission office informational campaign MTC Functions

TRANSCRIPT/ ASSESSMENT/ CREDITING MODEL PROFESSIONAL ADVOCACY DEVELOPMENT/ OUTREACH TRAINING COMMUNICATIONS TECH PLATFORM SCHOOL RESEARCH CHANGE MANAGEMENT