Reflection on Sal Khan's One World Schoolhouse

It seems only fitting that as I get ready to hand out progress reports to my students this week, I read through a chapter titled Tests and Testing in Sal Khan's book One World Schoolhouse.  In this chapter, Khan suggests that educators need to question what level of learning is demonstrated through tests and what do test marks truly indicate about a student.  These are interesting concepts considering my last post, Evaluation, Reporting and Technology I suggested that an assigned mark ends the learning process for a student.  Testing, according to Khan, is a snapshot of the student's learning and for a variety of reasons they do not truly represent the student's potential.

Khan questions the validity of tests as they do not give the full picture of the student's learning.  For example, he wonders howl long the learning is retained after a test.  While reading this, I reflected on how often I remind students that they need to carry skills learned earlier in the year forward and apply them to current work.  The students seem to miss the idea of connecting what they have learned to real life applications.  Khan also wonders if the tests actually show what is important.  Tests created by teachers differ and as a result what each finds to be an important concept may differ so student knowledge may differ.  A final thought is that tests isolate subjects and that learning is not connected to larger concepts.  As a result, Khan feels that testing filters out the creative thinkers who must focus on answer questions a certain way in order to meet the teacher's requirements.  If they student does not meet the teacher's expectations then the student will receive a poor mark.

This leads to Khan's to further questions about tests, how valid are marks and what is an acceptable grade? First off, Khan questions what correct and incorrect answers tell the teacher.  A correct answer may be a result of deep understanding, a result of rote memorization or a lucky guess.  An incorrect answer may be a result of lack of understanding, missed lessons or careless mistakes.  The teacher must assume that when a correct answer is given in shows an understanding of content while errors means a lack of understanding.  What we need to remember as educators is that students are being given greater opportunity to show their learning in a number of ways.  Students can display knowledge through displays, pictures, models, use of technology. As educators we need to give students choice on how to express their learning and knowledge.

A final  interesting concept presented by Khan is what is an acceptable mark.  I know that when I was going to school I would be happy with 75% mark.  Khan flips this acceptable mark by stating that the mark indicates that the student is missing 25% of knowledge needed to be successful in this area.  How can a student possible move forward in their learn when they are missing a quarter of some concept that they will need to build upon in the future?  Khan feels that students should go back to review and then be retested until they gain all the knowledge that is needed to move forward.  Khan even questions a student who receives 95%; this means that the student has missed 5% of some key learning.  Again the foundation for future learning is not fully there.  Is it realistic to expect that every student reaches the mark of 100% on each test before they can move on?   At what point does a self paced classroom not meet the needs of the student?

A final thought, grades often define a student or it gives the student a label.  With labels, expectations and limitations are often attached.  How do we assess and evaluate students without giving grades?  Does the mark of an A truly mean that the student has a deep understanding of the subject or have they just mastered test writing?

21st Tools: Making it easier to fulfill the fundamental principles of Growing Success

Here are some great thoughts from my teaching partner Chantelle Davies, Some interesting thoughts as we continue to move forward with technology in our classrooms.


Ontario’s Growing Success document outlines assessment, evaluation, and reporting policy for the Ontario Curriculum. It is based on seven fundamental principles which provide the foundation for the policy that is outlined in the document. Each of the policies outlined in the Growing Success document build upon these principles. These seven fundamental principles are as follows and suggest that “teachers use practices and procedures that:

• are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
• support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French), and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;
• are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;
• are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course; 
• are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
• provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement;
• develop students’ self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

As I reflect on different aspects of the document I think about how the 21st Century tools we use in the classroom today impact our assessment and evaluation. In light of having recently completed progress reports, I consider how important students mastery of the learning skills are to a successful school year. Early in the year, we often focus on the learning skills of responsibility and organization. We work hard with students in September and October to ensure they are completing their work in a timely manner; and that they can create and follow plans to complete this work to the best of their abilities.

While we all hope that these skills come naturally to our students; in many cases these skills need to be taught. In light of the fundamental principles that ask us to be transparent and to communicate clearly with students and parents, technology makes it easier for us to do so and thus in turn also helps us to provide our students with further support in staying organized. For example, as I make greater use of my classroom blog I am also using it as a space to share what our class learnings have been, provide copies of handouts/homework that have been assigned, and share when deadlines are coming up. Having this additional tool not only helps to make students more accountable (because they can’t say they didn’t know when a test was), but it also teaches them how to use other tools to remain responsible and organized. My students know that if they forget to take their reading logs home on the weekend that they don’t have to come to school with their work incomplete on Monday. They can look on the class blog for a copy of the task choices they have to choose from and still ensure they have been responsible; completing their homework.

In addition to learning skills, using 21st Century tools allows us to be more effective in meeting several of the fundamental principles outlined in the document. For example, the use of some technologies allows us to ensure that feedback is clear and timely. This can be seen when students are using tools such as google documents or google slides to complete their work. The ability to highlight and comment right on specific section of their work ensures that students are clear on which aspect of their assignment you are speaking of. As well, tools that all us to give audio feedback allow teachers to give feedback faster and to ensure that the feedback is clear for all students, without the limitation of being able to read the teachers written word.

It is still possible to meet the seven fundamental principles from the document without incorporating technology into your practice. However, not only does technology allow us to better engage and support all students; it makes us more efficient at meeting these important guidelines around assessment and evaluation.

Evaluation, Reporting and Technology

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As this week comes to an end, we are getting ready to send out progress reports to our students in the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board.  As the reports are completed, I had a discussion with some of my peers about the process.  One idea that was interesting to me was that once parents and students see a mark they ignore any other feedback.  Feedback is meant to give students an idea of what they did well and what steps they need to do in order to improve.  However, whether a student gets an A or F, it seems that the feedback does not matter to them.  The A students feel they have done things right and figures they do not need to do more while the F students feel they have failed so there is no point in trying further.  So how do teachers get around students' (and parents') fixation on marks?

 The simple answer is to do away with marks and focus on feedback.   Many may question this idea, however, with the use of technology this is truly a possibility.  Consider report cards.  They are still being delivered in the same manner as they have been for a great number of years.  Teachers try and write a summary of each student's learning three times a year to help inform parents about their children's progress.  This made sense many years ago when it was difficult to reach parents.  However, today we can reach parents in many ways; e-mails, cell phone, blogs where parents and students can access classroom activities.  These tools give parents and students instant information about how well they are progressing.  Parents no longer need to wait for a report to find out how their children are managing, they could do this with the use of technology.

  To consider how using technology could change the way we report I began to explore how teachers are using OneNote in the classroom.  One teacher expressed that she liked OneNote because she could use it both as a textbook and an exercise book.  Everything was in one place and she and the student had access to this at all times.  The teacher can monitor how students are progressing and give feedback that is timely and specific to that students work.  If a parent was interesting in how they student was progressing all they would need to do is view the their child's work and the feedback that is being given.  Since feedback should be focused on strengths and needs it would tell parents exactly what they did well and what they need to do to improve making a mark irrelevant.

On a final note about reporting and the use of technology, I have often heard administrators state, "There should be no surprises on the report cards for parents."  The underlying message is that communicating with parents about their children 's progress should be ongoing. What better way of informing parents than using technology?  By using tools such as OneNote, or e-portfolios, parents can see students work all in one place with the teacher's feedback.  The report card will have no surprises.

By using technology to give students regular and timely feedback on their work would there be a need for report cards?  What more could be crammed into the tiny space of the comment sections that could not be seen by having parents actually view their work?