Assessment Systems and Education Quality

1. Assessment Systems and Education Quality Dr. Kelvin Gregory GIZ Draft: Kelvin Gregory

2. Structure of presentation • The integrated assessment system – focused on learning • The importance of culture • Culture, education and personal effort • The enabling environment • The layered components of an assessment system • Features of the system • The layers • Classroom assessment • Term assessments and benchmark assessments • Year assessments (examinations) • Some closing thoughts • Need to develop technical expertise and leadership • Need to develop supportive culture • Empowerment orientation GIZ Draft: Kelvin Gregory

3. Integrated assessment system – with formative assessment at its centre Culture Legal environment

4. The importance of culture • Culture is the set of norms, beliefs and values, rituals and ceremonies, symbols and stories that make up a social group. • The culture is a main determinant of organizational behaviour • Classroom, school, country • You have seen the power of culture and cultural leadership • Dysfunction results if culture is at odds with the organizational system • If you are a teacher, think of the worse class • If you are an administrator, think of a law or policy that many people are resisting • Reflect on the history of this country and region.

5. Culture, education and personal effort • Some political leaders have skilfully moulded the education cultural values of a country • “A nation’s wealth in the 21st century will depend on the capacity of its people to learn” (Goh, 1979) • “We need a mountain range of excellence, not just one peak, to inspire all our young to find their passions and climb as far as they can.” (Shanmugaratnam, 2008) • “You are the one who can determine your own success -yes, life may be hard on you, but if you try, you can succeed, and others have.”(Ng, 2008) • “To live well in the present, we need to know the past and have a sense of the future,” – (Kiat, 2011 ) • What characterizes, and what should characterize, the Kosovo education culture? • At the classroom, school, district and national levels? • How are values, beliefs and practices shaped by Kosovo assessment practice? • Is learning really valued? How do you know?

6. The enabling environment • I know there has been a lot of work in this area: • Law, ministerial directives/orders • Curriculum • Some central questions: • Is there a systematic focus on learning for the 21st century? • Do all teachers and students know what needs to be taught and to what level? Do they understand why? • What are the assessment practices and how do they support learning? • Is there an Assessment Policy that frames assessment? • Is it implemented? Evaluated? • What evaluation system is in place to evaluate the education system? • Is the enabling environment congruent with the current culture? • Is there a strategy for cultural change? If so, what is the basis of this strategy and how is it being implemented?

7. Assessment Systems – The need for a layered approach to provide data to inform learning • Classroom and school assessment • Closest to the learner • Best position to inform learning • Limited ability to evaluate national policies and curriculum attainment, limited capacity to inform larger improvement cycles • District and National Assessments • Distant from learner • Can provide data useful for improvement of systems (teacher, school, district, nation) • Can be used to align standards within and across schools • Can model standard setting and benchmarking • International Assessments • Furthest from the learner • Useful in providing data to evaluate and inform national systems including policies • Benchmarking the national education systems against other countries, promoting reflection on the national system GIZ Draft: Kelvin Gregory

8. Assessment is an embedded system vital for evaluation, learning, and progress • Assessment: • Reflects goals and values, and promotes an understanding of what is important and valued, and how it is valued. • Is vital for improvement, is essential to evaluating , reflecting and reforming educational practices at all levels of an education system and help prevent complacency developing. • Should be sensitive enough to elicit indicators of achievement and changes in achievement to direct future learning and appropriately certify learning. • Use the above to reflect upon your current assessment systems (classroom, school, Year 9 examinations, Matura, etc.) • What values are communicated though the current assessment systems? What values should be communicated? • What impacts do the current assessment systems have on learning? Can these impacts be improved? • Are the current examinations and other assessment systems sensitive enough to capture and direct learning? How do you know? GIZ Draft: Kelvin Gregory

9. Assessment is an embedded system vital for evaluation, learning, and progress • Assessment: • Must be constructive, enabling reflection, change and growth, and inviting discussion, goal setting and action. • Should be transparent, informative and open to evaluation, helping all learners, educators and (assessment ) experts reflect and refine their policies, practices • Provides data for multi-layered accountability and improvement systems • Use the above to reflect upon your current assessment systems (classroom, school, Year 9 examinations, Matura, etc.) • How do they help build positive learners, enable growth, and invite goal setting and action? • Are they transparent and well understood by learners, teachers, parents? Are they fair? • Are they used to improve teaching and the formation of better policies and actions GIZ Draft: Kelvin Gregory

10. Summative assessment within classes • The core of a summative assessment system should be clear objectives and standards • Do students and teachers know what is expected? • A comprehensive, modern curriculum requires a range of summative assessment methods • What summative assessment methods are used in Kosovo? • Is range used to encourage and recognize different styles and types of earning? • How skilled are teachers in using a wide range of methods • What programs have been used to broaden and deepen the summative assessment skills of teachers?

11. Summative assessment within a term • The results from many summative assessment tasks are sometimes summarized in a single achievement report at the end of a term • There needs to be clear, documented systems for achieving this summarization • And the summary should have a comparable meaning across courses and students • How are summative assessment tasks merged together to form an overall grade? • What policy or procedure directs this? • Grade inflation occurs when the grade over reports achievement • Actual achievement is lower • And this distorts the education system • Policy and practice based upon bad data is unlikely to be good policy and practice • Do you have any evidence of grade inflation with Kosovo? • If so, what is the nature of that evidence? • What corrective action is being planned and taken?

12. Summative assessment and benchmark assessments • A benchmark provides a comparison with the achievement and/or reporting standards • A benchmark assessment could be ideally used at the end of the term • Or another time • A benchmark assessment can be used to: • Gauge progress towards the achieving standards • Provide feedback on other assessments and the reporting system • Could be set at the end of a term to inform teaching and the standard of learning • A benchmark test can be externally set and may include international test items • Benchmark tests require very fast turn marking and informative feedback systems • They could actually be solely administered by the school (but set externally, with external interpretation guidelines) • How might Kosovo use benchmark assessments to improve assessment and learning?

13. Summative assessment for a year • You have examinations • And these have undergone much change since independence • You are aware of many of the strengths and weaknesses of the examination system • The most basic evaluative questions include: • How well does this system recognize learning? • How well does this system shape learning and teaching? • How transparent and accountable is the system? • How congruent is this system with cultural and community systems? • Is there evidence of a clash or conflict?

14. Some closing thoughts • There are many technical things to learn, to refine, adapt and adopt • For example, from PISA • And there is much you already know • For a while think of your best teacher and how he or she formed the class into a learning organization • He or she almost certainly had the technical skills to teach • And he or she probably formed the class’s beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors so that overt corrections were seldom needed

15. Some closing thoughts • Keep on engaging with new ways of doing things • Build the technical skills • Explore the organizational culture • Disempowerment or empowerment • Isolation or discussion • Hindrance or cooperation • Reaction or prediction • Blame or problem solving • Individual or community • Individual vision or shared vision • Examine why the technical expertise is slow to be adapted or adopted, and may be actively resisted • Change management strategies may be helpful • It almost certainly will not be because more money is needed