Yesterday, the Smarter Balanced Assessment consortia released sample test items and performance tasks – providing educators a glimpse into the future of assessment within Delaware and around the country. Smarter Balanced was created in response to states adopting the Common Core State Standards and is one of two multi-state consortia developing a Common Core-aligned state assessment. Delaware is one of the 27 governing states of Smarter Balanced. Like the Common Core itself, Smarter Balanced will test not only factual recall but problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, too.

The released test items, which were developed by teachers across the country, demonstrate that student assessment is rapidly evolving for the better. While Delaware’s current state assessment the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System (DCAS) is paving the way, the items included go much further than what our students see today within our schools. They include not only multiple choice items, but constructed response questions that utilize videos, interactive media and other tools that enable us to measure more rigorous and in-depth learning experiences of students. In addition, other student learning styles, such as visual and auditory, are engaged to provide students more opportunities do demonstrate their knowledge.  

Delaware is moving in the right direction by helping to better support teachers implement Common Core. This year, Delaware teachers have begun to incorporate Common Core standards into their teaching. Sample Smarter Balanced testing items are slated to be rolled out in 2013-2014 with full implementation set for the 2014-2015 school year. For more information about the state’s plan and timeline, click here for the Delaware Department of Education’s toolkits.

My colleague Sarah and I were up in New York City (and Newark, New Jersey) for an event focused on the role and potential of technology to drive student learning. We went on a site visit to Merit Prep Newark which is a recently opened school that provides a glimpse into what this might look like in the years ahead.

The first thing that stood out to me is the proximity of students and teachers. The school serves 80 kids in 6th grade, and they were all in one large space. This space differs drastically from my time as a teacher, where I had between 25-35 students in one enclosed classroom. While this large space was initially off-putting, it was clear that it had an interesting impact on student ownership. Kids seemed much more relaxed and engaged since instruction was in small groups while they had access to help as needed during independent practice; therefore, all their interaction with adults was on a more one-on-one basis versus a traditional lecture style. This created a sense of comfort that is hard to quantify and a sense of confidence in tackling difficult tasks because they knew help was readily available, if necessary.

The second thing that became apparent is that teaching no longer happens in silos and isn’t the same between different teachers. As soon we walked in, we saw one educator doing small group instruction to ten students on the United States Constitution while another was tutoring two kids on fractions. While that part might feel like it parallels other schools, what differed was that these educators were all working within eye and ear shot of one another – showing that teachers can serve more as pit crews compared to cowboys. In addition, it was clear that educators were collaborating not on a weekly, but on a minute-by-minute basis as they adjusted their instruction and schedules to meet the needs of students at that moment.

The biggest question I had afterwards was about student culture. In a room that has both every teacher and student from the same grade, the importance of not just collaboration, but seamless integration, becomes key. And while it is clear that instructional and operational challenges are present, the potential is there to truly transform the teaching and learning experience inside classrooms, with vibrant cultures where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

My biggest takeaway was that technology can enable educators to use their invaluable time doing what they love most – working with kids. And while it was just a limited glimpse, I’m definitely inspired to think more in depth on what this could look like for our kids back in Delaware.

As technology proliferates and continually increases our ability to personalize learning for every student, educators can use this opportunity to completely rethink everything from school design to instructional formats to the tools utilized for instruction, according to a blog post on NPR’s KQED.

The blog post documents the transformation of the Hartland-Lakeside school district in Wisconsin from an industrialized model of desks in rows with the teacher up front lecturing to a classroom organization that better enabled differentiated instruction. The article highlights how the district didn’t try to squeeze different components into their current classroom structure; instead, they redesigned the school ecosystem. As I read the blog post and looked at the pictures, I thought of my time in graduate school, my experiences here at Rodel, and how my work in these environments more closely mirrored that of a coffee shop than a traditional row of desks.

As any graduate student will tell you, there are times when you’re sipping coffee late at night as you read a recently released study to bolster your argument for a final paper and others where you’re asking how to input a regression formula into excel. Or, in my case now at Rodel, there are times when I am at Brew HaHa writing for this blog or in a meeting with my team talking about our roles at an upcoming event. As my experience and those of the students the article highlights, both of these situations are not uncommon and require completely different learning environments, one in which you can constantly change in order to meet the needs of students at that the moment. And while the article no doubt documents ways in which educators and students can rethink how this redesign impacts classroom design, the more important thread that underlies this is how teaching will change as a result. In a constantly changing environment where students move in and out of groups and assignments, educators are no longer the deliverer of content, but facilitators of learning.

This sentiment was perfectly captured in an article highlighted on our blog previously, in which Atul Gawande, giving the commencement speech to the Harvard Medical School, stated that, “we train, hire, and pay doctors to be cowboys. But it’s pit crews people need.” While not the medical profession, the parallels to education are clear – rather than thinking of teachers as individual islands within a school, we need to reorient our thinking and focus on building teams of teachers (and the spaces they work in) who work with kids in varied and constantly changing ways in order to meet their needs.

While an intuitive concept, it can be hard to imagine; however, the work of Opportunity Culture highlights what this could look like in practice. It can range from having a teacher work with small groups on a rotating basis to one teacher being responsible for and monitoring other educators. While no doubt benefitting students as they learn and move through content at their own pace and style, another benefit would be to redesign educator responsibilities to reflect their strengths. For example, a teacher who is great at motivating struggling students could work in small groups or one-on-one while another who can explain content clearly and concisely could be responsible for delivering content. For all this to work, as the article highlights, we need to start thinking of classrooms as coffee shops – one in which it’s not static but continually evolving – which includes everything from the teacher down to the pieces of furniture. 

Looking at the picture of Hartland-Lakeside online, I’m hopeful that every Delaware kid will have the opportunity to attend a school that looks like that in the near future – one in which the design better enables every student to learn and prepares him or her for what they might experience not only in college, but in his or her career afterwards.

The University of Delaware’s annual “Delaware Teacher and Administrator Supply and Demand Survey Analysis” report reminds me of fixing my first car in high school – a lot of repairs around the edges that kept it running while, in the end, a whole new car was required.

We all remember our first car – for me, it was a 1982 Honda Accord. That bad boy had over 235,000 miles on it when my Dad gave it to me and, miraculously, lasted for another 15,000 miles before the axle fell off the wheel while going over a speed bump (great story). While I owned it, it seemed like it was always in the shop getting a new belt or engine part – all attempts to keep it running before the inevitable new car was required. As I read the recently released report, it’s clear that problems such as late hiring are simply symptoms of something much bigger, and that’s the fact that Delaware needs a new ride.

As the report highlights, there has been a decrease in the percent of late hires, with slightly less than 50 percent hired in August or later (an improvement from over 60 percent from the previous year). While that should be applauded, as the report highlights, we still hire over 60 percent of our teachers in July or later and only 13 percent in May or earlier. On top of that, over 60 percent of district personnel report the uncertainty of September 30^th enrollment is a major or moderate reason for late hires.

These two points combined demonstrate what a coalition of stakeholders, through Vision 2015, have advocated previously – we must stop tinkering with our 70-year old car in order to get modest improvements here and there and simply redesign the ship to be more simple and flexible.

What does this mean? It means switching from our unit count formula that provides funds based on a group of students towards a weighted formula, based on students’ needs, where the dollars follow the individual student. This would enable district hiring managers and principals less risk averse if they know a smaller percent of dollars could not be provided. However, and more importantly, it would enable us to provide students who need more support (low-income, English Learners, special education, etc.) with more funds in order to enable them to reach rigorous expectations.