About Assessment - Reshan Richards at TEDxNYED

Summary

In this engaging TEDx talk, Reshan Richards delves into the complexities of assessment in education. He critiques the traditional methods of testing and grading, arguing that learning is a continuous, messy process that cannot be captured in mere numbers or letters. Through personal anecdotes and amusing stories, Richards emphasizes the value of informal assessments and the role of technology in enhancing, rather than depersonalizing, the learning experience. He advocates for a flexible approach to education, where creativity and exploration are encouraged, and learners are supported in discovering their unique journeys.

Highlights

• Reshan Richards kicks off by challenging conventional perspectives on assessment, urging a shift away from grades to understanding the full scope of learning. 🎓
• Richards shares amusing anecdotes from his teaching days, emphasizing continuous assessment over static tests. 😄
• Creative use of tools, exemplified by students building amazing projects in Minecraft, highlights the potential of playful learning environments. 🔥
• Richards narrates the inception of his educational app, developed through an unexpected partnership initiated by a simple blog post. 🌐
• A student-created video exploring the solar system demonstrates the unanticipated possibilities when learners take charge of their own education. 🚀

Key Takeaways

• Learning is a continuous, complex process that can't be reduced to simple grades or tests. 📚
• Assessment should be holistic, focusing on informal interactions and real-world applications. 🌍
• Educational technology should enhance human connections, not replace them with data points. 🤖
• Creativity and exploration in learning environments, like Minecraft, can lead to remarkable educational experiences. 🎮
• Encouraging innovative use of tools and platforms can lead to unexpected, rewarding educational outcomes. 🚀

Overview

Reshan Richards sets the stage by questioning the conventional approach to assessment in education. He critiques the control exerted over learning, from its definition to its measurement, often boiled down to grades. These grades, as he argues, fail to encompass the dynamic and continuous nature of learning.

Amidst his humorous storytelling, Richards highlights his own experience as a teacher. He describes how he used to assess students outside the constraints of formal exams, viewing every interaction as an opportunity to understand their learning journey. He conveys his belief that educational technology should foster relationships, rather than turn learning into data.

The talk takes a creative turn as Richards shares several exciting examples of student creativity in digital environments like Minecraft. He ties these anecdotes back to the broader theme of innovation in learning, concluding with a message about the importance of letting go of control and supporting students in their quest for knowledge.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Assessment In this chapter, the speaker discusses his thoughts on assessment, beginning with a problem he observes: a misguided effort by people to control learning. This includes controlling the definition and process of learning.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Complexity of Learning and Assessment The chapter discusses the complexity involved in the process of learning and assessment. It challenges the traditional view of learning as a linear and isolated process, suggesting instead that it is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. The speaker references a self-drawn diagram to illustrate their perspective, contrasting it with a more sophisticated diagram by Trong Le. The chapter emphasizes that learning begins at birth and involves a wide range of interconnected factors.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Grades vs. Assessment The chapter discusses the constant nature of learning, emphasizing that it continues perpetually, though the environment and the type of learning may change. It highlights a critical issue in the understanding and application of assessments, particularly the common confusion between grades and assessments. The speaker suggests that grades and assessments are fundamentally different, illustrating the point with the humorous observation that one of the few effective uses of grades is when they're displayed on restaurant windows.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Formative Assessment and Technology The chapter discusses the complexities of learning and questions the efficacy of reducing learning outcomes to simple evaluations like grades. It highlights the speaker's effort to integrate formative assessment with emerging technology. Formative assessment is portrayed not just as testing but as providing feedback, guidance, and understanding learners' development.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Depersonalization of Learning The chapter discusses the use of technology such as clickers, graphs, longitudinal data, and heat maps in the learning process. It raises concerns about the potential for these tools to depersonalize learning as teachers rely on vast amounts of data to assess a student's learning journey. The emphasis is on the tension between capturing comprehensive data and maintaining a personalized, human-centric educational experience.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Continuous Assessment Perspective Audrey mentions a reference to a Terminator in a film, implying that only a robot teacher could assess where children are in their learning process. She contrasts this mechanistic view of continuous assessment with her own educational focus and energy. Audrey, drawing from her experience as a math teacher, recounts a question she frequently encountered from students, indicating a different approach to understanding and interacting with students' learning.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Informal Learning Interactions In this chapter titled 'Informal Learning Interactions,' the dialogue captures a teacher’s perspective on assessments in education. The teacher challenges the conventional view of assessments being limited to formal tests. Instead, they argue that every interaction with students, whether in or out of the classroom, serves as an assessment tool. The teacher points out that students often dislike this view, as they typically associate assessments with formal testing scenarios. Yet, by continuously observing students, the teacher assesses their development as learners beyond traditional testing environments. This chapter emphasizes the importance of recognizing diverse forms of learning and assessment in educational settings.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Examples of Creative Learning The chapter discusses the informal interactions that contribute to a person's learning journey. It emphasizes the role of educational technology, not as a tool for depersonalizing learning or merely collecting data points, but as a means to strengthen relationships between teachers, learners, and various participants in the educational process.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Using Technology to Support Learning The chapter 'Using Technology to Support Learning' discusses the integration of technology in education, highlighting its potential to engage and motivate students. An example is given of middle school students using Minecraft to create complex projects. One student impressively constructed a functional fire station in response to a challenge, illustrating the creativity and problem-solving skills that can be fostered through technology-enhanced learning.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Personal Anecdotes and Technology Use In this chapter, the narrator shares personal anecdotes that highlight creative uses of technology. The chapter starts with an admiration for a fire station, which is quickly followed by fascinating discoveries on the internet about global projects. One such project involves recreating the entire world of 'Game of Thrones' in Minecraft to scale, showcasing the impressive scale and detail that technology can help achieve. The narrator's excitement extends to receiving an email from a student who shared his creative work, a picture of a tree he made, illustrating how technology inspires and facilitates creativity across different platforms. This chapter exemplifies the blend of personal interactions with the broader capabilities of technological innovation.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Unintended Creative Outcomes The chapter discusses how unintended creative outcomes can arise from simple objects, like a toaster. A humorous incident is recounted where a toaster caught fire, which was seen as 'awesome' by some kids at a school. This happened when the kids decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches using a hotel-style conveyor belt toaster, which is not designed for such use. The story highlights an unexpected, creative use of a common kitchen appliance.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Conclusion The conclusion highlights the adaptability and innovation of individuals when interacting with designed tools and environments. It reflects on how people often use these tools beyond their intended purposes, showcasing creativity and experimentation. The narrative emphasizes that, while creators have specific intents for their inventions, users can repurpose these inventions in ways that the creators may not have anticipated. The chapter underscores the beauty and potential of human creativity in finding novel uses for existing technologies.

About Assessment - Reshan Richards at TEDxNYED Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 uh I'm going to share with you uh some thoughts I have about assessment and I'm going to start oh quick disclaimer uh I'm going to start by Framing a problem that I see a misguided effort of people trying to control learning control how learning is defined control how learning happens
• 00:30 - 01:00 and uh worst of all control how learning is measured I think people try to see it as this very linear isolated singularly causal process when in fact it's this giant mess of stuff that happens and this is my self-drawn diagram it's not nearly as sophisticated as uh trong Le's earlier with the paint and stuff this is my closest uh thing to it um but I guess you know my perspective on learning is that from the moment you're born uh to
• 01:00 - 01:30 the moment you end uh you're learning it's just always happening it's just that the settings change and the types of learning that take place uh might vary uh and so that leads really to a problem with how we understand assessment and really how we use the word assessment and I think the biggest mistake is to confuse grades and assessment and I think they're completely different things I the only you know one of the best uses of grades around here are when you see them on restaurant windows I
• 01:30 - 02:00 think they're useful there but if learning is this incredibly complex thing how is it possible to reduce all of these magical things that happen to a single letter or a single set of numbers I mean it just it mystifies me uh you know I've been trying to position myself at at an intersection of formative assessment uh and emerging technology and even when I hear formative assessment being thrown around you know I see it as feedback and guidance and learning about where people are uh in their learning development and
• 02:00 - 02:30 you know as I look at this intersection I see clickers and graphs and longitudinal data and heat maps and crazy heat maps and like are we trying to get to the point where teachers have to be able to look at something like this and be able to see where a kid is in there learning I mean if you're going to try to capture all of the points in somebody's Learning Journey you have to have tons and tons of data points to really measure it and you're really just kind of depersonalizing the whole learning process and I'm glad that
• 02:30 - 03:00 Audrey referenced a Terminator in that kindergarten uh cop shot before maybe you didn't catch the red eye but it seems like that the cyborg or the robot teacher is the only person who could look at a kid see where they are you know oh hi kids how are you doing I know where you are and you know like then maybe that's how they kind of assess learning and I I just don't that's not where I'm interested in focusing my energy um you know when I was a a math teacher I always used to to get this question you know when is our
• 03:00 - 03:30 next test when is our next assessment is this going to be on the next test and that's me there with the crazy hair and uh I used to say and they would roll their eyes well I'm assessing you right now every moment that we're together is an assessment even moments when we're not together it's part of my assessing where you are as a student and as a learner and you know they don't really like that but but it's true I be like I'm watching you right now I've just assessed you and so I've been trying to figure
• 03:30 - 04:00 out a way to define these types of interactions all of the informal things that you know might unintentionally or intentionally happen and these are the things that really paint the picture of where people are in their in their Learning Journey and I see the role of educational technology not for trying to depersonalize and create these data points but rather to strengthen relationships between teachers and Learners uh and just all sorts of people so I'm going to shift here hold these
• 04:00 - 04:30 thoughts I'm going to talk about things that I think are awesome does everybody know what that block is yeah so the the the other day I was talking to some uh middle school students and uh you know they were showing me like these crazy like lava things and chain reactions it was really amazing stuff and I was like all right I'll be really impressed if one of you can build a functional fire station to deal with all of this chaos that you're brewing in your Minecraft world and in 10 minutes a student built me a working
• 04:30 - 05:00 fire station I was like that's awesome and then a few weeks later I found out uh on the internet that a whole worldwide group of people have recre recreated the entire world of Game of Thrones to scale in Minecraft like that's awesome and then yesterday a or on is today Saturday yeah yesterday a student emailed me a picture of a tree he made awesome where somebody took Grand Theft Auto and turned it into back to the
• 05:00 - 05:30 future that's awesome and this this to me is really awesome it's a toaster it's awesome it was on fire it was awesomer the reason it was on fire was because of a couple of kids at the school uh where I worked before uh when they got the toaster in the building were like let's make grilled cheeses and you know I don't know if you are familiar with conveyor belt toasters like in hotels they're not made or
• 05:30 - 06:00 designed uh to handle grilled cheese sandwiches but yet you know how would they know that of course you can make a grilled cheese brilliant you know it wasn't foolish they they saw the parameters and the environment around them and they tested it and they tried to do something with it so you know those examples that I was just showing to me are examples of tools and environments that have been created and the people who made them you of course they have their own intent of what those things are going to be used for but the Beauty and the design is that they're
• 06:00 - 06:30 open enough for people to try to really push the boundaries of what might be possible so I made a kind of a quest to try to find out tools that I could use to support my teaching that I thought you know kind of had that or supported that same type of experience um you know and those experiences they can't be measured you know they can't be graded they just kind of happen and you you you look at them and they can't be graded and you know you can only guide and support them and so I started a Blog trying to like
• 06:30 - 07:00 find apps and tools that were out there and it's not a popular blog nobody goes there so I wrote this post zero comments nobody liked it one tweet by me and the amazing thing that happened it's just a incredible series of events that from this post the next day because of that tweet the Developers wrote me back and we're like oh we're interested
• 07:00 - 07:30 in some of the things you're doing and over the next two years we formed a partnership it's it's my two partners who are in Poland and I've never met them in person yet we've been working together for two years and you know my daughter was born and then about 10 days later I gave birth to this app and you know I I I'm not going to talk about the app really but I I'll talk a little bit quickly about the intent that you know I have ideas of how
• 07:30 - 08:00 I'm trying to um capture these informal conversations and dialogue and support relationships between actual people um and I know people look at some of the technology and say oh there's this use or there's that use and you know maybe that's not so good maybe it's perpetuating problems but I try to think of it as being neutral you put it out there and you let people do with it uh do with it what they want and see what kind of good things happen so I'm going to I'm going to use some of my my precious time here just to share just just one video that came up in my like a
• 08:00 - 08:30 narcissistic Googling of myself over the summer today you have come into our journey across the solar system with our best pilot Bruce we are currently approaching the sun it is the center of the solar system it is a big ball of nuclear explosions called fishing it provides light to the Earth and is really really really really really really big and really really
• 08:30 - 09:00 really hard so I'll show the rest of it in a second so the reason that this made me happy was I never made an instruction manual on how to build something like this and I have no idea what purpose or what reason this young man decided to put this thing together but he somehow stumbled upon something um that I created and made something else out of it that I didn't you know I don't know how he did some of the things in here and I just thought thought that was really neat um he goes through all of
• 09:00 - 09:30 the planets in the solar system and uh here's here's how it continues this is the asteroid belt it divides the solar system into the terrestrial planets and the gas giants it is also where you hide your Millennium Falcon when you're being chased by the Imperial Star fre thank you for coming on this year's Journey I have a holiday for the next 2 months so
• 09:30 - 10:00 please find your own way home over app Captain Bruce so my final uh thing that I'll show on the screen up here is uh just this a simple idea that don't try to control the learning experience just let things happen and guide and support people thank you