{"id":8052,"date":"2019-12-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/the-challenges-of-a-large-diverse-school-district-and-the-promises-of-performance-assessment-micro-credentials\/"},"modified":"2020-03-10T08:18:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T12:18:30","slug":"the-challenges-of-a-large-diverse-school-district-and-the-promises-of-performance-assessment-micro-credentials","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/the-challenges-of-a-large-diverse-school-district-and-the-promises-of-performance-assessment-micro-credentials\/","title":{"rendered":"The Challenges of a Large, Diverse School District and the Promises of Performance Assessment Micro-credentials"},"content":{"rendered":"
This post originally appeared at the Center for Collaborative Education<\/a> on November 13, 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In our large, urban school district\u2014Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky<\/a>\u2014we are challenging ourselves to do more than ask students to bubble in circles to \u201cprove\u201d what they know. We are expecting students to demonstrate and provide evidence of their abilities, skills, and dispositions. We know we are not alone. Across the world, schools are creating profiles of learners and portraits of graduates to describe the aspirations of their students. Schools are organizing exhibitions, demonstrations, presentations, and defenses of learning. Schools are planning learning experiences that are engaging and relevant, and that recognize that a person\u2019s agency grows when their work is applied to the world.<\/p>\n At the more than 150 Jefferson County Public Schools, this has proven to be a worthy and large task. We have set the bar high\u2014we want to ensure that every student, every year:<\/p>\n As soon as the bar was set, the challenge was obvious to us. Normally, our students did not have a wide body of evidence to include in their “Backpack of Success Skills” or to use in a presentation or defense of their learning. They had too few meaningful learning experiences to refer to\u00a0when discussing their Success Skills<\/a>. There wasn\u2019t much evidence of students being the agents in their own learning, of meeting the aspirations set by the Success Skills.<\/p>\n The Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n This has raised a problem of practice for teachers all across the district: How do we design learning experiences and assessments that require and create the opportunity for students to produce evidence of learning and growth?<\/p>\n And a problem of practice for district leaders: How do we support teachers in this design, in ways that do not undermine the principles of agency and authenticity that we know under-gird all constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, including this newest iteration – deeper learning.<\/p>\n We are too big and too diverse for a centralized, top-down solution or a one-size-fits-all approach. We are too human for reductionist, standardized measurements. We need professional development that:<\/p>\n The Possibilities of CCE\u2019s Performance Assessment Micro-credentials (PAMCs)<\/strong><\/p>\n Enter the Center for Collaborative Education’s (CCE) Performance Assessment Micro-credentials. Here we saw the possibility of meeting many of our needs:<\/p>\n Our first step was to pilot the earning of PAMCs through the facilitation of several cohorts of teachers who applied for these micro-credentials. This initial work included training review panels, recruiting virtual community organizers to shepherd cohorts through the process, and collaboration of multiple district players to ensure inter-departmental coordination and buy-in.<\/p>\n Panel discussions at our annual Deeper Learning Symposium provided a platform for teachers who earned these MCs to share their experiences with their peers. Sessions at other national conferences have allowed us to spread the word and the work.<\/p>\n Moving Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n Where there are possibilities, there are challenges\u2014and we are facing those as we move into the new year. For classroom teachers, it may feel that district initiatives such as the Success Skills, the Digital Backpack, Performance Assessments, and micro-credentialing (not to mention project-based learning, personalized learning, and new state academic standards) are competing for space with one another.<\/p>\n To address this, we are holding several hybrid professional development sessions called\u00a0Performance Assessment Micro-credential Launchpads<\/strong>. Teachers earn 3 hours of PD for their \u201cseat time\u201d, in which they get a crash course in the requirements of earning these Performance Assessment Micro-credentials\u00a0and\u00a0begin designing a performance assessment, aligned with the Success Skills towards evidence for a Backpack. Upon the successful execution and submission of their performance assessment work with their students, they are now eligible for additional hours of PD credit.<\/p>\n We are confident that as authentic evidence of learning is valued, expected, and celebrated in our district, a teachers\u2019 ability to design high-quality performance assessments will be an in-demand skill. Having a way to refine and certify this skill through the evidence-based process of micro-credentialing not only meets our needs, but it does so in a way that employs the principles of teaching and learning that honor the agency of the learner, value the application of the skills, and empower the people to challenge systemic inequity.<\/p>\n Learn More<\/strong><\/p>\n Justin Elliott is a Deeper Learning Resource Teacher in the Jefferson County Public Schools.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","mapsvg_location":""},"legacy_category":[],"issue":[370,368,402,393,383,395,371],"location":[120],"class_list":["post-8052","cw_post","type-cw_post","status-publish","hentry","issue-lead-change-and-innovation","issue-issues-in-practice","issue-commit-to-equity","issue-support-professional-learning","issue-rethink-instruction","issue-create-balanced-systems-of-assessments","issue-learn-lessons-from-the-field","location-kentucky"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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