Saturday, March 3, 2012

Assessment quandry

When all intelligence is equal and everyone counts in equipotential heterotopias, how do we know we have learned what we set out to learn? Have to take achievement as standardized test score, at least a high stakes test score, out of the mix. How would we assess?

A student told me about empowerment evaluation where each stakeholder in the teaching and learning situation is accountable for her/his role in the activity. Sounds interesting and something I should look into. Fetterman is the person associated with this idea. Does anyone know this work? What do you think about it's application to teaching and learning activity?

The curriculum teams I am envisioning would have to also be responsible for assessment, but then you get the question about transferability across contexts since Americans are so mobile. Should we still have a high school diploma of sorts to show that someone has "completed" a certain level? But once we start in this direction, we end up with inequality of intelligence because intelligence has to prove it knows rather than coming to see itself. Is it enough for a person to say they see for an assessment to be satisfactory?