Blogs on Performance Assessment

My previous post focused on planning entry events for project-based learning so that projects launch with students' curiosity fully engaged. Today, let's focus on the other important bookend of a project. The culminating event is when students share the product or result of their investigation, receive feedback, and celebrate their learning.

In November of last year, the Department of Education released its National Education Technology Plan (NETP) after 18 months of input from educators, government officials, and industry people.

Earlier this year here on Edutopia, blogger Audrey Watters reviewed the plan and solicited questions from the Edutopia community about the plan. We sent the highest-ranking questions to DOE's Karen Cator who answered each of them -- on video -- here.

Collaborative assessment must be part of our learning today. We, as educators are doing our students a disservice if we don't attempt to make this type of assessment available to our students. There are few professions and work environments that only focus on individual competencies. Most modern work environments involve some type of collaboration or connected problem solving to enhance their corporation or product. However, the inevitable barriers surface in the form of social and digital media taboos.

What if we had a tool that assured us as educators that we had prepared students for college success? At Envision Schools, we believe that our Deeper Learning Assessment System is preparing our students for success in college and the data is backing up our belief.