Individualized instruction as a subset of personalized learning






What should we assess?

Some thoughts on what tests should measure, from Justin Minkel:

Harvard education scholar Tony Wagner was quoted in a recent op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman on what we should be measuring instead: “Because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity to innovate—the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life—and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge.”

Can we measure these things that matter? I think we can. It’s harder to measure critical thinking and innovation than it is to measure basic skills. Harder but not impossible.

His suggestions:

For starters, we need to make sure that tests students take meets [sic] three basic criteria:

1. They must measure individual student growth.

2. Questions must be differentiated, so the test captures what students below and above grade-level know and still need to learn.

3. The tests must measures [sic] what matters: critical thinking, ingenuity, collaboration, and real-world problem-solving.

Measuring individual growth and providing differentiated questions are obvious design goals for personalized assessment. The third remains a challenge for assessment design all around.