Archive for the ‘News’ Category

One hundred years ago John Dewey posed the question — “Can there be a science of education?” What Dewey was looking for was a way to base educational decisions and practice not on conventions, not on rote rules, but on facts concerning the realities of what happens in actual teaching and learning situations. His goal was to liberate educational institutions from drudgery and habit. Now, a century later, applying our groundbreaking discovery of how to assess the reliability of educational measures, and using the idea of a community of science as a basis for providing professional development, we can claim that what we are practicing is indeed educational science.

Master Teacher Jason Brechko (Glens Falls School District) and ACASE founder Paul Zachos are building capacity in teachers to do just that in their workshop Applying Educational Science to NGSS Assessment and Evaluation.

Over the course of 5 virtual sessions, a group of 11 Master Teachers from Capital Region schools in New York State came together to examine and enhance their classroom assessment and evaluation practices in the context of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and their New York State equivalents. Participants became as deeply immersed in the principles and practices of educational assessment and evaluation as is possible given the short time frame of the workshop. They experienced a state-of-the-art distinction between assessment and grading as part of the evaluation of their own participation. They watched the workshop leaders building, testing, and refining their own learning goals as the workshop proceeded. They experienced work with educational information from points of view of students, the teachers, and educational scientists. They learned about the dangers of inappropriate aggregation of educational information and built educational facts through treating the outcomes of discrete learning goals as dependent variable data.

Those who completed the 5 days return to their classrooms with a toolset for sound, practical educational decision making. They have prepared and tested practical learning goals and rubrics that they can use with their own students and share with colleagues that address the 3 dimensions of the NGSS.

Read more about our take on Educational Science here.

Curious about this or future workshop opportunities? Reach out to Paul paz@acase.org or Jason jason@acase.org.

ACASE is currently accepting applications for a full-time, paid internship. Join us in our mission to make the experience of students deeper and more meaningful, and to reignite the spark that inspired many teachers to take on the challenges of the classroom. Interns will work in conjunction with the ACASE team in a collaborative and supportive environment to develop high-level skills in educational assessment and evaluation by working on a variety of challenging projects. Click here for a description of the work, qualifications/skills, and instructions for applying. We look forward to hearing from you about the impact you wish to bring to the world of education!

What can a classroom teacher learn from tracking a single learning goal over time? As it turns out, much! This approach can have profound implications for both teachers and students. Just taking a small handful of learning goals that you believe are important, capabilities that you believe are fundamental to future learning and success in the world and monitoring students’ attainment of these over time will give you a deeper look into each of your students. It can give you and your students an experience of success and accomplishment that is completely beyond the experience of getting a good or bad grade.

Jason Brechko, Master Science Teacher from Glens Falls School District, presented his work and insights at the Eastern Section STANYS Conference at Siena College on Friday October 11, 2019. He told the story of his new approach to collecting and using information in the class, and pinpointed three shifts in thinking that occurred:

1) from 100% based scales to meaningful levels of attainment

2) from ignoring learning skills to tracking and reporting learning skills

3) from aggregated grades to reporting progress on discrete learning goals

ACASE joined Jason at STANYS and shared a powerful tool and way of thinking about classroom information, asking the question: what can we learn from tracking a single learning goal over time?

And, the conversation continues at the Forum! Join Jason and ACASE there as we discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent in this New Approach to Grading http://educationalrenewal.org/forum/forum-introduction/

Nearly 100 years ago, John Dewey asked a seminal question: “Can there be a science of education?” He imagined many benefits to such a science including a deepening understanding of facts; a path towards discovery of new facts; the ability to confirm and disconfirm theories and findings; and the opportunity to provide both a sense of control and liberation from dull routine and blind tradition.

On Thursday, 18 July 2019 Paul Zachos presented to the scientific and education community at the 15th International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Conference (IHPST2019) in Thessaloniki, Greece. He noted while far from being realized, several important foundations for the realization of Dewey’s dream have been set. Notably he reported on the profound contributions of the curriculum theorist Mauritz Johnson and the genetic epistemologists, Barbel Inhelder and Jean Piaget. The presentation detailed two continuing obstacles facing the establishment of a science of education as well as a solution based on Johnson’s conceptualization of the intended learning outcome as basis for clarifying what Dewey called the ‘subject matter’ of education. Learn more by viewing the presentation slides here.

How do we make value creation a conscious effort? How do we know that value is there for every stakeholder in an initiative?  How do organizations collect the right information to ensure this? Academics and practitioners gathered at the 2^nd Global Conference on Creating Value, held at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business on May 14^th-15^th 2019, to explore challenges and opportunities with value creation. ACASE Director Monica De Tuya and Associate Manuel De Tuya contributed to the conversation with a talk titled From Values to Valued Outcomes: A Training Framework. Specifically they asked: how can the development of human capabilities generate value for individuals and for the social entities in which they take part, whether these entities be cultural, economic or political? The answer to this question requires identifying and operationalizing the values to be realized for individuals and for the social entity. These values justify the choice of capabilities to be developed in individuals and the impact of the realization of the capabilities (or their lack) on the social entity.  Educational information on the extent to which capabilities have been attained can best be operationalized via practical learning goals and practical learning outcomes. Impacts on social entities (e.g. a business) must also be operationally defined so that the effects of the development of targeted capabilities can be studied and established. ACASE’s Framework was presented as 5 Key Questions in order to move from these values to valued outcomes:

1) What capabilities do we most value in our employees?

2) What are the training goals?

3) How do you know if they are being attained?

4) What are the best ways to help trainees attain the goals?

5) What information is needed to improve and add value to the training program?

We look forward to continuing both the work and the conversations at this intersection of academia and industry as organizations explore the many facets of value creation.   

UAlbany students in Dr. Eliot Rich’s MBA class, Systems Analysis and Design, have concluded a one semester collaborative experience with ACASE. This was a real-life case study concerning the opportunities and challenges of bringing ACASE’s Assessment Information System (AIS) into the 21^st century and positioning it as part of a viable business opportunity. The students conducted interviews with those familiar with the AIS and worked closely with ACASE over the semester to refine their projects. The students’ work culminated in final presentations to stakeholders during class on May 7^th, 2019, where they made recommendations that included comprehensive and innovative solutions to the AIS to enhance delivery of value to the K-12 education and training worlds.

On Friday March 29, 2019 ACASE Associates and UAlbany PhD Students Panpan Yang and Monica De Tuya, along with co-author and ACASE Director Paul Zachos, will present their poster Practical Reliability for Teachers at the 14th Annual New Trends in Information Science Research (NTIR) Conference at The University of Albany. This research describes and evaluates a new approach to measuring the reliability of educational information that is practical and useful for supporting daily classroom practice as well providing a tool for social science researchers.

Reliability studies can be a valuable, practical tool for teachers and students as well as for social scientists. But, there are two shortcomings associated with conventional method of calculating reliability:

1. Measurement: Current methods of calculating reliability are too complex for those who are not versed in psychometrics (e.g., classroom teachers) to apply or even to interpret.

2. Information: Current methods of measuring reliability are tied to conventional tests scores derived from composite measures (aggregations of distinct and different learning outcomes). The result of this type of aggregation is that the salient information concerning these distinct learning outcomes is obscured.

The poster illustrates the power of inter-rater agreement (and the value of disagreement!) as a tool for monitoring the reliability of information on the attainment of learning outcomes.  It can serve as a generic tool for enhancing the quality of research information in the social sciences, and produces simple to interpret and useful information for improving daily classroom activities.

UAlbany students in Dr. Eliot Rich’s MBA class, Systems Analysis and Design, have been working diligently on their real-life case study project: the opportunities and challenges of bringing ACASE’s Assessment Information System (AIS) into the 21^st century and positioning it as part of a viable business opportunity. The students have spent the last few weeks gathering information about the hopes and challenges associated with ACASE’s Assessment Information System (AIS). They have reviewed ACASE documents, explored the system online, and conducted multiple interviews with ACASE staff, local teachers, and people from industry. Finally, they had the opportunity to present their initial findings to ACASE staff Paul Zachos and Monica De Tuya; and ACASE consultant Anne Savage during class on March 5^th 2019. The students had the further opportunity to speak with Anne about the inner workings of the system. We can’t wait to continue supporting the students’ work and look forward to their recommendations for enhancing our system and growing our opportunities to deliver value to the K-12 education and training worlds!

On Friday March 1^st at Clarkson University in Schenectady, NY, ACASE Directors Monica De Tuya and Paul Zachos presented their talk Moving Forward to the Age of Educational Information at the bi-monthly New York State Science Education Consortium’s Progressive Dialogue on P-16 Science Education. The Consortium, co-facilitated by Bruce Tulloch, is composed of leaders from the professional science education community. This was the first public presentation of ACASE findings concerning two major threats to the quality and usefulness of educational information — mis aggregation and ambiguity in levels of attainment. De Tuya and Zachos demonstrated how these would have an adverse effect on the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards and the new New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards. The presentation included a solution to these problems that could be developed and implemented directly by New York State science teachers working in their own schools, enabling them to produce valid and reliable information on learning outcomes that would be practical and useful at all levels of educational institutions in the state.

How do we best assess a student’s attainments in writing? The Association for the Cooperative Advancement of Science and Education (ACASE) provides a framework that enhances educational program quality in the full sequence from Values to Valued outcomes – from the design of learning goals to the refinement of educational activities through collaborative evaluation.  Jill Cowburn, Journalism teacher in Saratoga Springs High School, and SMARTACUS Publisher Dan Forbush are applying this framework to mine the critical information that will be most helpful in supporting the progress of their students in becoming skilled and creative writers.  Read more about this exciting educational project here http://www.smartacus.com/lead-story/2019/2/18/the-assessment-of-writing