Education systems around the world are undergoing dramatic change – my province being no exception – as educational and community leaders (politicians) search for the magic pill that will transform learning to help prepare our kids for a future we can barely imagine.

I have been enthused by our new Minister of Education’s calls for teachers to be innovative and share their creative ideas. He has even put his money where it counts, with a $5 million Innovative Learning Fund from which educators and schools can draw resources to support innovative teaching methodology. The fund, while experiencing some initial growing pains, has been popular with teachers and has resulted in many new initiatives. The difficult part is how to assess the impact on learning of these initiatives. In other words, does the teacher get an F or an A?

Therein lies the rub. I have been rattling around the idea of assessment in my brain for a while now. Then came Clay Burrell’s latest post on the history of grading as a form of assessment. Seems like it traces back just over 200 years ago to a fellow named William Farish at Cambridge University who wanted to have an efficient method of increasing the number of students (and thus his profitability) that he could “teach” at any one time. This draws parallels to the concurrent wave of industrialization that was on-going at the time, where grading was also being implemented to assess product and, by extension, workers.

Of course, this practice quickly spread throughout educational institutions in the industrialized world, sending educational leaders into a frenzy of structure building. The measure of good teaching quickly became how well their students were able to “perform” on tests based on content. Critical thinking took a back seat to facts and figures.

Now, we even see schools closing due to poor test scores, even when it is widely recognized that there are so many other factors involved in the ability of a given set of students to achieve “success” on standardized tests than how they were taught. The same people demanding results also want teachers to prepare students for their future, not our past, and talk of innovation and a fundamental shift from teaching to learning. They appeal to teachers to nurture creativity and teamwork with our students, all the while demanding that teachers be accountable through the test. Luckily, we have been largely immune to this pass or perish mentality.

Daniel Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind, (it’s a must read if you haven’t already) documents a fundamental shift in the dominance of left-brain thinking to a world where creativity and connections will be the signature of success. So, the question begs, what does this have to do with traditional testing?

I can’t rationalize promoting creativity and innovation among teachers, yet holding the ability of their students to perform on standardized tests (the drawbacks of which are well-documented) as a measure of their success. Accountability simply cannot be held through a Scantron card.

I am all for accountability for teachers. I witness indifference to being a learner and unwillingness to change everyday. However, as soon as teachers are told that their success as an educator will be measured by their student’s performance on standardized tests, they will prepare their kids to take that test, to the detriment of REAL learning. We can’t have it both ways. If we truly want teachers to take the time to have their students drill deep, developing 21st century information literacy skills through authentic, project-based, collaborative activities, then assessment must assume a whole new meaning and role in the process.

One that does not include Scantron.

tags: technology, education, whipple, scantron

Photo Credit: Done Forever, Originally Uploaded to Flickr by mr. nightshade.