Genuine Reward: Community Inquiry Into Connecting Northeast

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 381 894 EA 026 686 AUTHOR Owen, Jill Mirman; And Others TITLE Genuine Reward: Community Inquiry into Connecting Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. INSTITLYION Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast & Islands, Andover, MA. SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. REPORT NO 1SBN-1-878234-0772 PUB DATE 94 CONTRACT RP9100200S NOTE 183p. AVAILABLE FROMRegional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands, 200 Brickstone Square, Suite 950, Andover, MA 01810 (Order No. 9812; $21.95 plus $2.50 postage). PUB TYPE Books (010) Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC08 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Community Involvement; *Educational Assessment; *Educational Environment; *Educational Objectives; Elementary Secondary Education; Evaluation Criteria; *Learning Strategies; Program Development.; *School Community Relationship; School Restructuring; Student Evaluation ABSTRACT Many schools and states have moved in recent years to more "authentic" ways of assessing student learning. However, most assessments are essentially summative, one-shot measurement of outcomes. Tnis book is based on the work of Designing Schools for Enhanced Learning, a group of schools and educators that have worked with the Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands to better integrate teaching, learning, and assessing. Its guidelines were developed within the context of the National Education Goals, with an emphasis on the community. This guidebook outlines a process :or redesigning schools in which learning, teaching, and assessing are strongly interconnected. Its framework is based on the premise that knowledge about learners and learning dives good teaching and assessment. Chapter 1 depicts a process th I can result in a learning-driven education for all students.It discusses the definition of community as it relates to schools and the role of a multiconstituent design team. Chapter 2 illustrates principles of learning and development and describes current work to redefine learning outcomes that are important to all students. The third chapter presents current thinking about assessments and issues to consider as assessm'nt plays a broader role in learning. The fourth chapter describes principles for designing new learning environments, taking into account the issues that challenge all school-community members. Appendices provide information on group activities, evaluation techniques, and innovative assessment plans. Fifteen figures are included.(Contains 154 references.) (1.111) zt- I 00 I -0 00 rn 40, 411. it. C74 41 f S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Ott et Educaticnai IleteirCh And improvement ED TONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER IEP'C) -V 4 sra This document has 1300.reproduced as rocenved tro'n the Donlon or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction Quality o Panto of way. or OPinronti stated in this docu" moot do not necessarey represent &hoist OERI position or polity 4 6.-6;==1 Dy .rye anvaezn Ow p at re Sri goillgt Wet et_ LLt elm r-iiNryci A NT AII ART Genuine Reward: CommunityInquiry into Connecting Learning, Teaching, andAssessing Jill Mirman Owen Pat L. Cox John M. Watkins el The Regional Laboratory forEducational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands 300 Brickstone Square, Suite 950 Andover, Massachusetts 01810 3 Editorial Sue Martin Production Eileen Stevens Design Kathy Squires 01994 by The Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement ofthe Northeast and Islands, 300 Brickstone Square, Suite 950, Andover, MA 01810 All rights reserved. This publication is sponsored in part by the U.S. Department ofEducation, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, under contract number RP-91-002-008. Thecontents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the departmentor any other agency of the U.S. Government. ISBN No. 1-878234-07-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 94-68215 543 2 1 Printed in the U.S.A. The most successful education reform efforts focus on what really counts: what students should learn, what they should know, and what and how they should be able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Such reforms pay attention to three essential domains learning, teaching, and assessing as well as how the three can best supporteach other. Among the challenges facing education reformers is that of developing or finding assessments that measure real knowledge and skills. Ideallythe assessing process will itself further the learning process andinform the teaching process. Most would agree that the standard"standardized" testor most multiple choice, short-answer tests for that matter do not measure what we want to be measuring, nor do they fosterlearning. Thus, many schools and states have moved in recent years to more "authentic" ways of assessing student learning; these assessments, in turn, are based on more authentic curricula. Even so, mostassessments are still tied to a concept of reward and punishment. Such assessments are essentially summative in nature; they are one-shot measurements of outcomes from which students learn little or nothing inthe process or from the results. This disconnection between assessment and learning is a tremendous source of frustration for educators who value assessment as anintegral part of the teaching and learning process. Some of these educatorschose a few years ago to join this Laboratory in adevelopmental effort called Designing Schools for Enhanced Learn'ng. Since 1991, these individuals andtheir school communities have been working together and with theLaboratory to better integrate learning, teaching, and assessingin their schools and classrooms. Working within the context of National EducationGoals and a movement toward national standards, they haveinvolved their communities in defining what their students should know, be able to do,and demonstrate. In general, the schools believe that to succeed,students must gain: oskills for learning and communic..ting, including reading, writing, computing, listening, speaking, technological and scientific literacy, critical thinking, and problem solving; o essential knowledge that will helpthem understand and operate in a multiracial, multicultural, interdependent world; and oa sense of efficacy and personal andsocial responsibility. Genuine Reward: Community Inquiry into Connecting Learning, Teaching, and Assessing Genuine Reward: Community Inquiry into Connecting Learning, Teaching and Assessing is one result of our work together. Our emphasis on community is deliberate. When individual students achieve success in school, the whole community reaps the benefit of fulfilling the social contract that underlies this country's democracy. Even the current national education reform movement, especially as formalized in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act enacted by Congress in the spring of 1994, recognizes the essential role of local communities and states. A driving force in this movement is the desire to improve what students know and can do and to measure and hold both students and the educational system accountable for whether or not they succeed according to several assessment measures. Several states in the Northeast have been in the forefront of a movement to focus on all students and their learning. Initiatives in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont, for example, have developed a common core of knowledge that all students should know and demonstrate by the time they graduate from high school. These frameworks are being developed with input from many different constituencies. They are now used to generate community standards as well as to connect content and knowledge standards being developed by content-specific experts. Ultimately, the phrase "think globally, act locally" applies fully to how education and the systems that promote and deliver it get shaped. Educational improvement happens classroom by classroom, school by school, and community by community. All educational reform efforts whether at the national level where content experts define what is most important to learn in each subject, or at the state level where much of the activity for improvement is centered have to eventually be taken, understood, and formulated to fit the needs, culture, expectations, and idiosyncracies of a local community school. This guide offers some processes for communities to use to engage with the mostfundamental aspects of education and to shape a response to the reform movement that will best serve all the children of their community. As acknowledged elsewhere, the guide has been codeveloped with schools that are part of the Laboratory's Designing Schools for Enhanced Learning initiative, a multifaceted, systemic change effort focused on developing understanding of how to improve systems and schools so that all children can learn. In addition to redesigning their own systems toenhance learning for all students, the schools that are part of this partnership reach out to other schools and communities in their own area as well as across state boundaries. They also share their learnings by contributing to publications like this one. This book, then, is one result of their learnings and is thus grounded in real experience with reform over several years.It is also a compilation of the relevant research that lays out as its conceptual framework that learning, teaching, and assessing are overlapping and interconnected. Each of its activities has more than one purpose,

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