With the help of two students and a teacher from his school, Dennis Littky described his quest to assess students' learning in ways that transcend traditional testing. "The things we think are important are hard to test," he told his General Session audience at ASCD's third annual Conference on Teaching and Learning. "How do I show that my students have gained a lifelong love of learning, that they have respect for other cultures? How do you show that?"
Littky is coprincipal of the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (known as The Met), a public high school in Providence, R.I. His experiences as a progressive educator have been documented in a book (Doc, by Susan Kammeraad-Campbell) and a television movie (A Town Torn Apart).
Students at The Met intern in the community, Littky explained, and work closely with mentors who help assess the students' learning. Littky told of one Met student who loved computers. He was placed as an intern with a fledgling computer company, where he thrived "because he was in an environment where people respected him and he had real work to do. His evaluation was done at that company. His mom and dad went there, I went there, and we watched the kid perform on that computer."
Students at The Met can demonstrate what they've learned "in context," Littky emphasized. "And that's what I'm trying to figure out. I can't have every college come down and see the kid when he's working at the computer store. So how do we put this together?"
One possible answer was suggested by Priscilla Santana, a junior at The Met, when she demonstrated her digital portfolio through a PowerPoint presentation. The portfolio shows "who I really am," she said.
Internships play "a big, big role" in the school program, Priscilla noted. One of her internships was at a hospital, where she assisted a research nurse with a neonatal intensive care study. When her mother's carpal tunnel syndrome sparked an interest in physical therapy, Priscilla produced a pamphlet on fibromyalgia.
Another junior at The Met, 16-year-old Steven Prak, presented his Learning Plan, also through a PowerPoint presentation. He outlined his interests and passions (which include astronomy, science, dancing, and sports), his goals, his strengths and weaknesses, his self-analysis of how he learns best, and the five Met learning goals.
Rachel Brian, a teacher at The Met, described the benefits of using "real-world people" to help with assessment. "Students present their work at an exhibition at the end of their project," she explained. "The mentor is there. Outside professionals in the field, such as business people and college professors, come in and assess students. Parents are there, too, because parents know the kids best, and they help to assess. And peers are there," Brian added, "which is maybe the most important part, because they help raise a culture of standards." When students see an exhibition that they find "amazing," they are inspired to try to reach that standard themselves, she said. "We see that happen a lot."
"When I watch our kids [perform], I can guarantee to you when they're good at something," Littky said. "But if I get just a test score, I can't make that guarantee because I've got to ask, Can the kid apply that [knowledge]? At The Met, we're actually watching it being applied."