Tag: psychology

5 Assessment Questions for Better Measures of Success

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In this post, I share some guiding assessment questions and provocations about the value system that education is built on.

There is also a 10-page workbook to download to support your reflection and action planning on assessment and the impact you have on students.

The Most Complicated Object in the Universe

My teaching journey started when I was studying psychology. I chose teaching because of formative experiences in 1995 when studying how we think, develop and learn. Learning elements of developmental psychology was a catalyst to my career.

[sharable-quote tweet=”The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10,000 other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe. ~ Michio Kaku “]

The brain seemed an incredible mystery we were all attempting to unravel. As you reflect on your assessment practices, keep that complexity in your mind.

The Draw-a-person Assessment

The drawing test was devised in 1926 by Florence Goodenough, a psychologist from the University of Minnesota. It was developed as “a new approach to measuring young children’s intelligence, ” as her paper is titled.

Children have ten minutes to draw a person, and the results are scored according to strict guidelines. Goodenough argued the drawings were a proxy for intellectual development.

I recall conducting the Draw-a-person test with children at a local primary school or nursery. Deciphering the mark-making and the developmental cues was fascinating.

[sharable-quote tweet=”Teaching is at the intersection between an enduring mystery and a social imperative.” template=”dark”]

Stay Curious About Assessment and Learning

My interest in developmental psychology waned after years in the teaching profession. That is strange to write, as you might expect one to multiply the other.

Perhaps the mystery was overwhelming. Or the distractions incumbent to the teaching profession got in the way. Maybe it was the shiny gloss of technology?

Looking back on my teaching, I wish I had stayed curious for longer about the mysteries of how we learn and assessment questions.

First Principles Questions

Nowadays, I am motivated by the provocation and utility of first principles thinking. A mental model I would take back to 1998 and offer to myself.

We can all find great clarity from the fundamental truths and principles of what we might be exploring. To use first principles, ask questions like these:

  • What are the enduring truths about building positive relationships?
  • What are the first principles of a community?

And the central question:

  • What are the fundamental truths about learning?

Making Sense of What Works

The Draw-a-person test is an interesting exhibit in the story of how teaching is changing. Although widely used, it was also critiqued and fell out of favour as a measure of intellectual development.

I put this down to the scale of the mystery of our brain.

It may have fallen out of favour due to what I call the solution shard effect. This effect occurs when we explain part of a grand mystery.

To begin with, we present a possible truth – a solution shard (fragment). It is not the complete answer, and questions may remain. A part of the truth is presented and explored, and challenged.

However, when this fragment is refuted, it impacts the established elements of truth around it. The second-order effect is a ripple of doubt.

How does this relate to education?

The complexity of how we learn and what teaching should look like can be overwhelming. What we thought worked is no longer valid. Practices that were in favour and widely adopted now languish on the pseudo-science scrap heap.

You might reflect on some of these assessment questions

  • How do I distinguish what works for my students?
  • How can I possibly control so many different aspects of the learning experience?
  • The experience with my students is contrary to the research I have read; what does that mean?

[sharable-quote tweet=”If we solve in silos, there is the potential of adding more fragments to decipher, more heuristics to navigate and more contradictory options of what works.” template=”quote”]

In a way, the confusion, uncertainty and part-truths are not surprising. Teaching is at the intersection between an enduring mystery and a social imperative.

draw a person test assessment questions new metrics
Photo by Jerry Wang

Better Assessment and Measures of Success

A further aspect of Florence Goodenough’s work that is relevant today is the need for broader measures of success and better assessment questions. She asked children to draw as a way of expressing their intelligence and development. It wasn’t just a number.

Jonah Lehrer explains in his article about Goodenough’s test:

there are countless ways to measure human intelligence, whatever that is. We’ve settled on a particular concept of intelligence defined by a short list of measurable mental talents. (Modern IQ tests tend to focus on abilities such as mental control, processing speed and quantitative reasoning.) But Goodenough’s tool is proof that the mystery of smarts has no single solution. The IQ test could have been a drawing test.

The Draw-A-Person Test – Jonah Lehrer

What do we value in schools?

Even in the 1920s, Goodenough attempted to develop better assessment questions and methods for understanding young children’s growth and development. Although an enduring mystery, a century later, a growing number of educators, schools and systems are asking, “is there a better way to measure success?”

The challenge of figuring this out at a student and system level is significant. Again, if we solve in silos, there is the potential of adding more fragments to decipher, more heuristics to navigate and more contradictory options of what works.

Trainee Teachers

Imagine for a moment the experience of new trainee teachers. Do we want that experience to be coherent and clear of the swirling mix of ideas? Or is better teaching practice forged from seeking a pathway through the mire?

We need leadership from research organisations, schools and education systems. An example of this is the New Metrics for Success project from Melbourne University.

a collaborative research venture between The University of Melbourne and selected forward-thinking schools to work in partnership to address the meta-problems faced by Australian schools today and in the future.

I wonder what peer projects link to this work from Melbourne University that exists worldwide?

Your Assessment Questions and Talking Points

To support your thinking and dialogue, return to the question of “What are the fundamental truths about learning?”.

Five guiding assessment questions and provocations

Here are five key guiding questions and provocations to frame your next step:

  • What are the fundamental truths about learning that we know work here (in your context)?
  • For this student, what am I doing that is making the biggest difference to their learning growth?
  • What is one truth about learning that I don’t currently do frequently enough?
  • From the strategies I have tried, what are the patterns of impact and change?
  • How can I collaborate on “the truth for us”, the fundamental components of learning design?

Download my 10-page workbook to reflect on these assessment questions, plus 30 more provocations about assessment and new measures of success. Explore the provocations and consider some action planning to improve your teaching.

You Should Design Learning to Privilege Experience Over Analysis

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In many ways this is a pre-cursor to some future posts about empathy. Imagine it is like a supply mission ahead of the main mission.[1]

I have long been interested in shining a light on the emotional journey of learning. At the centre stands the need for greater understanding and development of empathy. This challenge is meant on many levels, including the design of learning and the overall ambition and vision a school has.

I came across this recent piece[2] about the development of policy related to climate change. The paper is an effort to put research about human psychology into action when it comes to new policy creation. The first issue it raises squarely references the need for us to pay better attention to the way we engage others:

The Human Brain Privileges Experience Over Analysis…In short, how we feel about a given situation often has a potent influence on our decisions about how to respond (Slovic & Peters, 2006)[3].

Of course the context here is slightly different, however the same psychological findings are true when we consider the design of learning. Experiential learning is one well worn path to more engaged learners. However learner design for greater empathy is typically not.

What does this actually mean for the way I design learning?

We should continue to design learning so that it can be, “translated into relatable and concrete personal experiences.” This is that well worn path I mentioned. Increasing the empathy quotient in your class is a different ask, often changing as a result of what we just discussed. Design and co-construct periods of learning that your students connect deeply with. The research tells us that we humans will filter for those personal connections and remain much more engaged once we do. We need to turn up the dial of activities that develop the skill of empathy through relatable and concrete personal experiences.

You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.[4]

  1. I have been reading The Martian.  ↩
  2. van der Linden, Sander, Edward Maibach, and Anthony Leiserowitz. “Improving Public Engagement With Climate Change Five “Best Practice” Insights From Psychological Science.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10.6 (2015): 758–763.  ↩
  3. The full reference from the paper: Slovic P., Peters E. (2006). Risk perception and affect. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 322–325  ↩
  4. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1960  ↩

3 Variables That Profoundly Affect the Way We Respond to Feedback

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As Ken Blanchard says, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” But it would seem there are certain things that dictate our appetite for feedback. According to Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone, the co-authors of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, there are specific variables that distort the way we perceive feedback from others.

The following is taken from the BIG Think clip above.

“The first is your Baseline. In the literature this is called set point sometimes. It’s sort of a ‘how happy or unhappy are you,’ in the absence of other events in your life. Where’s that level that you come back to?”

“… the reason this matters for feedback, particularly if you have a low set point or baseline, positive feedback can be muffled for you. The volume is turned down; it’s harder for you to hear it,”

Heen explains that the second variable is Swing, or how much we are moved off of our baseline by any feedback. And the third variable for effective feedback is Recovery, or how quickly we return to our baseline.

It is useful to consider these three factors in the classroom as well, providing us some further ways to consider the impact of feedback for learners. Additionally this helps us to remain focused on how we are making this relevant to individual learners.

You can read more about this here The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback | Think Tank | Big Think

Was I Really An “A” Grade Psychology Student?

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I distinctly remember the white envelopes. It all boiled down to what was inside mine, 2 years of work and now an envelope. The closer you are to the beginning of the alphabet the better!

My Psychology A-Level was probably the reason I fully committed to going into education and teacher training. The course included a whole block on child psychology and I was gripped. It led me to better appreciate what I wanted to do. I remember going into a local primary school and seeing myself making a career out of working with learning.

But was I really an “A” grade student?

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by da.mas
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You might say that I flunked my psychology course work modules throughout my second year, they contributed in part to my final result but I struggled and was getting C’s and D’s. It wasn’t going well. I enjoyed the subject but found it hard to pull together the course work.

I went into the final exam leave feeling quite deflated but I had the chance to put it right – I had an intense 3-4 weeks of revision, which went really well. I almost enjoyed the exams because I just felt ready.

I wrote what they wanted to hear.

So when I opened the white envelope on that sun scorched lawn weeks later I had managed to pull it together and score one of the highest marks the Psychology department had seen on a final exam. Well done Tom you got an A.

At the time this was incredibly exciting – the whole campus was on a grade knife edge – nothing but talk for months and months of grades to get into universities. What did you get? How did you get on? Did you get what you wanted?

We were all wading knee deep in grades and exam results.

2 years of our education boiled down to that hot day with the envelopes and as those seals were torn we were in fact seeing a path being laid out before us. For some of us more education and those grades were the key.

On reflection I see the whole thing for what it really was including my own part in the merry-go-round of college and university. 

Although I got an “A” grade for my course I think, at best, I was just good at taking the exam. I was an “A” grade psychology exam taker (on that day)! Could I do it again? Probably not without the intense cramming revision. Einstein referred to it all as coercion of the mind:

One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not.

The most valuable thing that came from my experiences at college was not the grades but realising that primary teaching was something I wanted to pursue. However at the time the cultural swirl around results was the environment I was in and grades seemed the key to everything in my future. How very wrong I was.