Mindlab 9: Measruing Outcomes

From last week - how does our school vision reflect the culture of our school?

Where are you from?
How can a human be defined by where you are from?

Culture exists in community and community exists in context.  Taiye Selasi
You are part of the whole of many different communities:
1. The school or classroom
2. The educational Twitter community
3. Your family community
4. Your cultural community
5. Weaving class - Wananga Community

How do we measure this?

We belong to lots of different cultural groups. 
They come with rituals, relationships and restrictions. How are these reflected in our schools?  The things that make us similar are greater than what makes us different.

What makes us local and defines us.
What makes us human and gives connections between us.

Making connections with the kids:
Which local communities do you belong to and which are the same as the kids? Is this the physical location or just having the same interests and activities?

Institutional Culture:
Influenced by physical location.
Influence the way we do things.
Attracts different types of people.

How culturally intelligent are you?


Measuring Outcomes:
Norm Referenced assessment: Where do they fit in comparison to others?
Criterion Referenced assessment: Have they obtained certain skills?

If our communities are becoming more culturally diverse then surely cultural intelligence is a skill that is essential? How do our our school expected outcomes reflect this?

If we are going to 'custom design' a curriculum for individual needs then how can we assess for cultural differences?

PISA:
Triennial assessment of reading, writing, maths to compare countries. Comparing education systems.
WHY? What makes these effective education systems different?
Top 4 - Asian
Top 30 - NZ

What are we measuring?
Are they creative and autonomous?
How much child suicide is involved in that country?
Is it measuring national outcomes of the curriculum or the ability to complete the test?
How do we measure the values of student confidence, if they are articulate, their creativity and how they relate to others?

Our countries and populations are very similar so what is different about their education system?

Finnish Education System:
Building relationships
Small school and class size
Integrated community
Shorter days and 75 minutes play, excluding lunch time
Free school meals
Assessment formative and not standardised
Not give a grade till 14 years
Teacher has the same children for 5 years - detailed knowledge and relationship

Change is hard. 
There is a limit of how much effect we have as an individual. It is in collaboration that we can make a wider difference.

South East Asian countries perform well on the PISA test but have difficulty in engagement. We need to look at how to make our assessment engaging.

We need to make sure our assessment is not just cognitive.

Why do we assess?

1. What are student need?

2. Has our teaching been effective?

Are we designing assessment tools that cater for each of these engagement components.

Who is this information shared with? How does this feed into next step planning and targets?

Employers are looking for the social skills:

 - team work - problem solving - reliability - articulate - 

How can you record this as it is so subjective. 

Alternative: give an anecdotal example of where it was demonstrated. 

What makes an education system successful?

What would the individuals look like?

Our action:
Do we focus on teaching to the test?
It takes 5 years for a change to show in test results.
Successful systems value the quality of teachers and the ability for cognitive improvement.
It is not about how much money is invested but how resources are used.

America:
They are failing against the PISA but different states have different results.
Action:
Shift focus from ID to 'grit' or a series of character traits like perseverance and determination are more important then cognitive skills as measured by an IQ test.

What do you measure as success? Wealth?  Health? Relationships? Passion? Impact on the world?
Does our education system recognise this view of success.


What about the NZ concept of Hauora?
TKI Link

Globally we have been leaders in developing education alternatives that value the indigenous culture.

Kohanga Reo - full immersion to stregthen language, within Māori world-view

Kura, Kupapa Māori - Full immersion schools or English medium with Māori world-view

Wananga - university level from Māori world-view or Kaupapa 

We can learn from other cultures: Welsh and Gaelic