Please Log in to Vote.

3 out of 3 members found this useful.

Researchers at Harvard working on Integral Educational Reform

Posted September 28th, 2009 by zak stein
This is part of a large grass roots initiative to promote an integral approach to standardized test reform. It involves researchers from Harvard, the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, and DiscoTest (www.discotest.org), the non-profit branch of the Developmental Testing Service (www.devtestservice.com).

 

 

National Testing Survey

 

For more on the thinking behind this initiative see this paper (should be a live link): Stein, Z., Dawson, T. L., & Fischer, K. W. (in press). Redesigning testing: Operationalizing the new science of learning. New science of learning: Computers, cognition and collaboration in education
 

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

"Redesigning testing: Operationalizing the new science of learning"

Posted September 30th, 2009 by Ambo Suno

Hi Zak - Wow, this paper is tight! As I could see and follow along, each sentence and word has a specific function in explanation. Essentially, no wasted words, and probably very few missing, if any.

I like the philosophical recap in the last section, and I especially liked the "Historical preamble".

I recognize what you are suggesting about this project - it is huge in scope and possibility and brings education of individuals and the social functions of education up to date with testing technology and understanding, and with contemporary developmental and learning theories.

I appreciated the acknowledgment of the importance of "specific context" in this sentence. "Skills are built actively and dynamically by individuals in specific contexts and they are built hierarchically, with more complex ones transcending but including less complex ones."

This sentence was important to me - the acknowledgment of the place of emotion along with these other factors: "All skills are richly multidimensional, intrinsically involving emotion, cognition, context, and social support".

In regard to this last point, I want to mention an approach to development that emphasizes from a different angle the pivotal importance of emotion and emotional signalling as the ongoing basis for higher cognitive development. I think that the work of Stanley I Greenspan and Stuart G Shanker is beautiful and important in this general area of human development. I really like their book, The First Idea: How symbols, language, and intelligence evolved from our primate ancestors to modern humans, published in 2004 by De Capo Press. Since you are coming from such a primary educational and testing intention, I am not sure if it would be somehow important to incorporate whatever this model has to offer, if you all felt that their emphases were in fact valid and useful. But I'm quite sure you would find their excellent work interesting, if you haven't already.

It was enjoyable and inspiring for me to read this large-scope, excellent paper and project of you all.
The best to you and your project colleagues - and us all, ambo

PS. I know this is a draft and I suspect that typos and such have been noticed already. In case, you want to hear of the four that I came across, I'll PM them to you. I hope that's not presumptuous or tediously redundant.