Education 2047 #Blog 10 (14 JUL 2022)
Our education system has an overdose of examinations-
we want to examine the learners at the beginning of a course (conduct an
admission test), have an examination at the end of the course (to acknowledge
the 'degree' of learning acquired) and pepper the entire course with
examinations (or tests). After the exit examination, a person still has to
appear in a test (for selection of few and rejection of more) for recruitment
or admission into courses for higher education, where they look for competence
(knowledge + skills + aptitude) but end up testing knowledge only!
For academic courses, does it really make sense to have test or examinations-
both at the beginning and at the end? If we admit a student, based on a test, then
it should be the responsibility of admitting institution to provide all support
even remedial measures in completion of the course; after all admission tests
also cost time and money that is expended but not invested in learning. The pre-requisite of certain subjects at entry level also
is meaningless if an aspirant is admitted after clearing an entrance test,
whose level is often high- to select less and reject more!
I have already argued at length in favour of 'moving towards education without examinations'. What we need, during the course taken by a student, is a series
of assessments that may or may not touch all points in the syllabus, to enhance the learning as well. There has
to be, a 4- Quadrant approach (or what is popularly known as 360 degree)
starting with self-assessment itself. A person being prepared for certain level
of education must be able to look inwards and be competent to assess self (the
first Quadrant). It is not just in academics that we need to be capable of assessments but
also in all walks of life. Therefore, the education institutions must among
other things also train graduates for making good assessment of the situations,
and this is a life-skill by itself.
Assessment by peers and teachers in the classroom (second and third
Quadrants) can be very important element in the course of the course due to
their transactional and engaging nature. Currently such type of assessment is
discouraged because we conduct our classes/ courses conditioned for competition
where hiding one’s knowledge in the class and showing it in answer sheets- to
score over others is encouraged. In the absence of this in-class assessment
which is critical for learning by collaboration and by exchange of knowledge
(information/ opinion/ wisdom), we send out graduates who love to compete at
the work places that demand collaboration; in short, impoverished in soft
skills.
The fourth Quadrant of assessment should have experts (from academics or the industry or any other agency) working in that domain of knowledge. This assessment would be critical in nature and thus, closest to the real world. This should hone the learning and in a way impart edge to the graduate, to be a confident participant in the workforce. Institutions should not, keeping pace with the changing educational landscape, shy away from use of external spaces or even social media, for such type of assessments. Instead of conducting examinations inside four-walls (and with cameras!), we should use assessments as tool integrated in teaching-learning and make both more effective.
Thus, there will be three spaces/ places where the
assessment of a student can happen instead of the classroom alone.
Self-assessment can be done anywhere and anytime; peer assessment and that by
the teacher can be in the classrooms/ campuses that could be virtual
also; the final layer of assessment can involve experts (even virtually) which
will be most effective and that could even eliminate the need for tests by
employers. With this type of arrangement, only an entrance test is required and
no exit test (for employment or by the recruiter); and this may
do away the unwieldy approach of series of examinations both at
entry and exit, and also in between. Having batted for assessment, let me take
turn to bowl for a tool for the same- Rubrics!
Rubrics are versatile assessment tools, usually in the form of a matrix or
grid, hardly used in Indian education system. Also known as "grading
schemes", "criteria sheets", or "scoring guides", they
are used to measure a students’ performance and learning, across a set of
criteria and objectives. There are three components within
rubrics namely (a) criteria/ performance indicator: the aspects of performance
that will be assessed, (b) descriptors: characteristics that are associated
with each dimension, and (c) scale/level of performance: a rating scale that
defines students’ level of mastery within each criterion.
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| An example of rubric (Source: https://www.sadlier.com/) |
Rubrics can be used
for assessing learning at all levels- and encompassing open-ended experiments in
laboratories; project-based learning modules; online courses; mini/ minor projects;
capstone projects; articles; books; internship experiences; co-curricular experiences etc. They thus, comprehensively elevate the level of assessment and also that of learning, to
higher orbits through TASK (Testing of Abilities, Skills & Knowledge) and
by junking EXAM (Examining Xeroxing Ability of Mind)!
In an examination/ test, the student is penalized for failing short of reproducing standard answers; the rubrics however, incentivize a learner by telling what was deficient by way of feedback, that too from plural assessors at one go. Encouraging peer interaction as they are, rubrics are constructive in design and flavour when compared with examinations/ tests. As a whole, rubrics bring in the benefit of clarity, objectivity, transparency, consistency and celerity in assessment and also, reduced complaints from learners.
In the education system that has evolved responding to the need of industrial society, the universities and its teachers have over-burdened themselves with examinations, unnecessarily reducing themselves to machines who have to compare the answer with the text in the books and grade the reproducibility (not the learning!). It is high time, we adopted more meaningful tools of assessment like rubrics now– especially when learners have moved to the new turf as digital natives, navigate virtual spaces effortlessly, are experienced in the art of searching, choose their source of learning independently, and have even stopped writing or taking notes.
The questions to test the memory, as we are stuck obsessed with, can be built into the online material, embedded into apps, gamified or left to classroom interactions. The teachers must be trained to construct rubrics to assess higher order skills and generously use it in pedagogy, instead of questions which are copied from book with no thinking required. If the copying in the answer-sheets is bad, why copying of questions (asked in last 5 years) is not bad? Let’s come out (of examinations) and ‘rubric’ate education, for better learning outcomes!
***
Author is an Adviser with All
India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from
Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).
Views are personal.
Feedback will be appreciated in the comment box below. 👍
Previous blogs
Indiscipline in Disciplines for Multidisciplinary Education!
Reconfiguring Education as 'APP' Learning
Rejigging Universities with a COVID moment
Reimagining Engineering Education for 'Techcelerating' Times
Uprighting STEM Education with 7x24 Labs
Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online' Support
Moving Towards Education Without Examinations
Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance
Synallagmatic Industry-Academia Linkages