Here things get tricky!
Already, so close to the very outset, our pathway’s mode of (ethical) engagement in education – inquiry – is itself is called into question. Suddenly, the very way we are seeking to re-encounter assessment in education, as something we would wish for students, becomes itself a problem, and a very tricky anonymous inaugural question: “How do we assess inquiry?” We don’t even have to see Josh for him to be making trouble for us…
This step on the pathway begins in the fruitful trouble of the generative impasse of a question less to answer than to inhabit. Some questions we can live as instances of, the consequences of which follow, as in this step we hear from four educators, two administrator/educators and one superintendent of schools as they reengage assessment, and struggle sometimes to valourize and validate alternate forms of assessment…
In this step begins to ‘leak’ the question of student assessment into teacher assessment, as well as assessment in research, as the supports of ‘traditional’ forms of assessment begin to fail and assessment is no longer protected by presumed institutional and teacher authority.
Some questions to consider (we recommend brief small group discussions that can each then ‘compare notes’ about the different directions opened in how such ‘complicated’ conversations can go):
How do you respond to this video?
What does it bring to mind for you?
How many forms of assessment did you hear mentioned in this video? How many have you tried? What is the importance of these, in your experience? What are some of their challenges?
In what ways can you hear the forms of assessment described as changing the role of the student in their education? How are/are not these valuable, in your view?
What is the status of ‘being more anecdotal’ in assessment practice in your jurisdiction? What is taken for granted about assessment where you live and work?
Questions of assessment are, of course, not limited to education and schools – where in these discussion can we begin to see assessment as a more broad question than one solely fixed within ‘traditional’ education? Why is it important to (re)engage assessment in such a way? What do you imagine are the advantages and opportunities of doing so?
Discuss the resistance to change in education in terms of images of what assessment is, and what it is for. Find the points of discomfort for you and name them – then reengage these too…
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