A dream come true, welcome Jay McTighe! (3:07)
Cindy:
We now have Kevin Bartlett and Jay McTie in the same room together. Hey, Jay, thanks for joining us.
Jay McTighe:
Hello to both of you and to anyone who may be listening.
Kevin Bartlett:
Hey Jay.
Cindy:
So I want to tell a little bit of a story to the audience. So I was flying home from a school in Uruguay doing a training and I was in Panama in an airport and I looked down at my phone and I just see a Facebook post that says that Kevin Bartlett and Jay McTie are together in Panama looking at birds and talking about assessment and I was like how do I get out of here? How do I find them? I had like the most panicky moment. So it really feels like this podcast is dream come true for me. So thank you both for making the time to do this.
Jay McTighe:
pleasure.
Kevin Bartlett:
Yeah, really. We actually
Cindy:
I
Kevin Bartlett:
like
Cindy:
don't-
Kevin Bartlett:
being together, you know, it's weird, but we do.
Cindy:
and I'd love to kind of share with the audience the story of how does your collaboration begin?
Jay and Kevin, the ultimate education bromance (4:08)
Jay McTighe:
I'm not sure I recall, Kevin. I reached out to you or you reached out to me is the best I can remember.
Kevin Bartlett:
Yeah, it was simply that. It was whichever direction it was. It was. I'll be, you know, we're all fans, aren't we? I followed Jay's work for my whole career, and I just think UBD, the facets of understanding are another example of simple, deep ideas that just add something and never lose their value. So we started some informal kind of weekend chats about, I don't know, things we were thinking about and. dilemmas we were trying to deal with. And then over time, I was learning like crazy. Every time I, I'll tell you a few things about Jay McTighe. Every time we have a meeting, I come with something that puzzles me or an idea. And he says, let me have a think aloud about that. I may be paraphrasing wrongly, but I sit with my pen and everything he says I write down. And I think, yes, thank you very much. That helps. And then
Cindy:
Hahaha
Kevin Bartlett:
I go and I build that in and then I... take it back to him and say, what do you think of this version? So we just started engaging in fun chats on a, on a weekend about things we cared about. And, you know, I don't know, I don't know if we thought a project would come out of it, but I guess I hope something would. And so it evolved into, why do we work on probably the biggest barrier to great learning? Sometimes it's the whole assessment system. So
Cindy:
Love it. Might I ask you to share, you've kind of touched on it, but what are the things that you admire most about each other's work?
Kevin Bartlett:
Oh God. Can I leave when Jay speaks?
Jay McTighe:
I'll jump in on this one. I admire Kevin's thoughtfulness, number one. His work is deep, conceptual, systemic, but it's buffered by an extraordinary focus on practicality. And so, evidenced by relatively simple acronyms that are memorable, yet standing for big ideas, and also framing his work, which I know he's already mentioned around principles, LES. And so it's important work grounded in deep principles reflecting quote, big ideas, but manifest in a way that's eminently doable by teachers and school leaders. And it's a rare combination of people that confuse deep, principled-based thinking with practical, operationalized tools and strategies.
Cindy:
To get
Jay McTighe:
Plus
Cindy:
it from.
Jay McTighe:
he's just a fun person on the slide.
Cindy:
a good combo being able to take those kind of complex ideas and really operationalize them. That's it's such a gift. How about you Kevin? What do you admire about Jay?
Kevin Bartlett:
Same. I mean, basically, I mean, UBD, the six facets of understanding, explain, interpret, apply, empathy, perspective, self-knowledge, they're in my DNA.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Kevin Bartlett:
Taking the idea of, yes, we have competencies, but what sits behind them? And the simple language of learners understand that. We got all of that from UBD. And ideas that endure. I also admire his sheer, he's very, very productive, you know. Jay is extremely productive and very systemic. So, but I'll tell you something just to slide away from talking about that, because honestly I do admire the same things. I think Jay takes the complex and makes it simple. Some organizations, CGC, UBD, try to take the complex and make it simple. There are a couple of organizations I know that take the simple and make it complex.
Jay McTighe:
Hahaha
Cindy:
I'm sorry.
Kevin Bartlett:
But that's another story.
Jay McTighe:
Ha ha ha.
Kevin Bartlett:
So, and I just warmed towards that because honestly, Jay helps me understand what I'm trying to understand. And that helps if you struggle your whole life with certain puzzles and someone can say, here's a think aloud and you think, oh, I mean, honestly, using the portrait of a learner coming from the common house only came out of the constructivist Saturday morning chat with Jay. We might even have some differences of opinion about disciplinary transfer goals, transdisciplinary, but for me, I would never have had that thought without the conversation. It's full in. Jay and I are sense makers, I would say, and the best sense making tool is conversation. There's also generosity. I have to say generosity. We had this idea for the balanced assessment system, and we were working in Zoom conversations for an hour or so, because Jay is a sportsman and a grandfather. So his time is squeezed between his pickleball and his grandchildren and his learning work. So, and I said to him, you know what? If we're gonna do this work together, I think we need to get in the same room for a few days. Would you be prepared to come to Panama? Hence the picture in the rainforest. We went to the pipeline road. We took one morning off. And I said, you know, we can't really fund that. Are you prepared to sell fun to come to a hotel in Panama to work on an idea that we have together? And he said yes. And I thought, okay, we're not getting paid for this work. We don't know if it will ever be recompensed financially. We think it will be in terms of student learning. But a guy that I only know on Zoom was prepared to fly to Panama and sit in a hotel and bash out ideas to improve assessment systems. There's a generosity of spirit in Jay's sharing of his knowledge that I have just been the beneficiary of. So I don't know whether it's admiration or gratitude, but that's how I feel.
Jay McTighe:
And Kevin mentioned another phrase that I think resonates both with our professional relationship and personal relationship in that sense, but also professionally in our work with schools and teachers, and that is he made mentions of meaning-making. And one of the things we know from Bogotsky is learning is socially mediated. Translate. you learn best when you're learning with and working with others. And so there's a, there's a synergy that happens when you're engaging deeply. I had the fortune of 25 years of, of working collaboratively with Grant Wiggins. And we, we made each other better. And I feel the same relationship with Kevin. It's a, it's an interaction based on respect, working toward mutual. interests and problems and the resulting ideas are better because of the collaboration.
Cindy:
Oh guys, I've been kind of joking with my team that this is like the newest bromance, that you guys are the education bromance that's gonna take over the world. And that's something I've always admired about you,
Kevin Bartlett:
Let's
Cindy:
Jay,
Kevin Bartlett:
change
Cindy:
is. Ha ha
Kevin Bartlett:
the subject. I'm British. This
Cindy:
ha.
Kevin Bartlett:
is too much. We don't do emotion, you know. I had an emotion act in me at birth.
Cindy:
You're
Jay McTighe:
Yeah,
Cindy:
on my show now, Kevin!
Jay McTighe:
but you colonize, so maybe that's the reference.
What the guys are working on (12:00)
Cindy:
Too much. Okay, so let's get into the nitty-gritty of it then since you know, we're getting too emotional over here What is this new project you guys are cooking up? What has been the fruit of all of this all of this chatting and meeting up? Ha ha ha!
Kevin Bartlett:
I'll do a precursor because it's one of my... One of the things we talk about is this. The odd divide between theory and practice, between the research and the reality. The workshop and the classroom, the conference and Monday morning in the classroom, where it's like parallel universes. In a certain world, a group of leaders sitting in the Director's office think this protocol is a great idea for teachers the teachers look at it and think you're gonna be kidding me So somewhere along the line as soon as you step foot outside the classroom You lose the feeling what it means to be a teacher right now with all these kids And I've always been wondering about what the gap bridges might be. Is it the leg? Is it the dry language of curriculum? So for example, in New Zealand, they write learning stories instead of benchmarks in their national curriculum. They describe a scenario in a classroom instead of saying kids are able to, they describe them doing it. And so you've got, if anybody wants to know how to do great assessment, just buy one or the other of Jay's books, the one with Steve Farrar about assessing by design. But I don't know, how do you take the knowledge that somebody has and turn it into that teacher's practice? So Dylan Williams, a very brilliant Welsh, I believe, thinker said, people who do design work have insights and an aha moment, the facets of understanding, let's say. You see convergences and you turn them into tools. He said for teachers... It's the same sequence, the implementers, but in the reverse order. Provide the tools. In using the tools, people begin to see the convergences, and then they may reach the insights. And I would add somewhat facetiously at the end, and even if they don't, they'll be using better tools so the kids will get a better deal. So the idea of the balanced assessment system was really, can we take... whatever the CGC can contribute, and probably more that Jay can contribute, put our best ideas together and turn them into a connected toolkit almost, which uses the same language throughout
Cindy:
gorgeous.
Kevin Bartlett:
that deals with, well, I should let Jay talk about his assessment frameworks, but if you think of it like a genre. Purpose, audience, medium. What are the different purposes of assessment? Who's the audience for them? And what's the best medium or set of toolkits for doing that? And how do we give it to a school in a way that they will actually do it? Because I think one of the hardest things for schools is to create a fully connected system for assessment, recording, reporting, of, for, and as learning that serves all the audiences for that assessment. So, but at that point, I'm just saying that's what I think was. Jay is far more expert in thinking through that audience medium purpose. So I'm gonna hand over to my pickleball playing buddy.
What do we mean by a balanced assessment system? (15:40)
Jay McTighe:
Wow. Yeah, excuse me. To your question, Cindy, what is this balance assessment system project? It intends to explore one of the potentially more vexing parts of our profession, assessment and grading, and to look at it through a couple of lenses. One, as mentioned about Kevin's work, looking at assessment through a set of principles at LES that provide a conceptual underpinning for good assessment practices. Secondly, a kind of a systems framework that is Kevin referenced, we're looking at different purposes for assessment, different audiences for assessment information, and different ways of communicating assessment information for those purposes and audiences. grounded again in a set of principles. And then also take a close look at very specific assessment and grading practices, specifically at the school and I would say district levels. So that's kind of the it of the balanced assessment system.
Cindy:
So
Jay McTighe:
I
Cindy:
what
Jay McTighe:
will.
Cindy:
does that look like? Is it a book? Is it a set of tools? Is it a planning template? What's the product?
Jay McTighe:
Well, let me comment on a couple other pieces and then I'll turn it back to Kevin for product description. Comment on the phrase balanced assessment. There are at least two connotations that we have for that term. One is we wanna balance the types of assessments we're using. And so as you and listeners know, there are a variety of ways of gathering evidence of learning that teachers and schools and even the state or nation can use. We have multiple choice. tests, we have paper and pencil, you know, fill in the blank, short answer kinds of assessments. We have performance-based assessments in the form of performance tasks or longer-term projects as in project-based learning. We have maybe less quantifiable but certainly viable assessments like observing kids as they're working or speaking with them. You know, the root meaning of the word assess is derived from Latin. and the Latin term is assidere. And the translation of the Latin term is to sit beside. That's the root meaning of the word assess. That's very different than, you know, take out your, close your books, clear your desk, take out your number two pencils, your blue book, or fire up your laptop for some standardized test. But the related idea is that balanced assessment, requires different methods for gathering evidence, largely dependent on the goals that are being assessed. So certainly there are knowledge goals. There are things that we want students to know and objective tests and quizzes will let us know the extent to which students know those things. And if you think about it, knowledge is binary. You know it or you don't. So a test or a question can determine if you know it or don't. But then we have understanding goals. In Kevin's three C's of Common Ground Consortium, one of the C's is conceptual. So that's more than just seeing if kids know facts, that's wanting to see if they really understand and can apply their learning effectively. And so for goals that involve understanding and application, we need more performance-based assessment measures. to gauge whether students really do understand and can apply their learning.
Cindy:
Mm.
Jay McTighe:
We have other goals that might be called character goals in CGC or habits of mind or dispositions. These are a little more elusive than say knowing your math facts, but we can still get evidence of a student's open-mindedness or their honesty or their ability to and willingness to consider other perspectives. But we're not going to have a test on those things. We're going to look for what I call a collected evidence model over time. So this is a long answer, but it's an important one. So part one of balance assessment system relates to the idea that we're going to use a variety of sources of evidence, different types and forms of assessment to gather appropriate evidence for varied educational goals. one
Cindy:
Okay.
Jay McTighe:
size fits all assessment is almost inherently invalid because it's not assessing everything we value in the appropriate ways. The second connotation of the term balanced assessment refers to purpose and audience. And as we know, there are fundamentally three purposes for assessment. One is more in the front end, we might call it diagnostic or pre-assessment. finding out what students know or think they know before we launch into a new topic. This also involves checking for misconceptions. And we know, especially in science, there's a whole litany of literature that points out that students often come into a science classroom or approach particular topics of science with naive or misconceptions. And it sometimes takes some pretty really intense teaching. to break and correct those. But pre-assessment wants to find out if and when students have them. So we know that we need to address them during our instruction. The second purpose for assessment is formative, often known as ongoing assessment. Informative assessment by its very wording is meant to inform. It's meant to inform teachers about how their teaching is going and what adjustments might be needed. It is meant to inform the student of how they're doing through feedback and what they need to do to get better. It also informs differentiation. Maybe a third of
Cindy:
Thank
Jay McTighe:
the
Cindy:
you.
Jay McTighe:
class is getting it and two-thirds need more help and so the teacher would move to a differentiation mode. And those two first two forms of assessment as Kevin mentioned briefly are often known as assessments for learning because their purpose is to But there's a third purpose that often gets lots of attention in schools and in the larger world and that is evaluative purpose. Essentially grading is an evaluative function and grades should be drawn from evaluative quote summative assessments. Similarly, large scale accountability testing that's often done at state, provincial or national levels. is fundamentally an evaluative assessment. It's meant to find out how schools are doing and how cohorts of students are performing. So its purpose is evaluative. I mean, I could go on and on, but you get the point. So when we're talking about a second connotation of balanced assessment is making sure that we're clear about the varied purposes and using appropriate methods and tools to achieve those different purposes. And that is... an important quality of balance.
The next step in success criteria! (25:35)
Cindy:
theme that emerged in what you were just saying and something Kevin said earlier, was this need for educators to realize that there are different ways of knowing, right? Knowledge, the concepts and the skills. And I've heard that before, but I've never seen it so eloquently carried out throughout the entire framework that, yes, we're beginning with the end in mind. This is what it looks like to teach those different types of knowing. And this is what it looks like to appropriately assess those types of knowing. So I think just that alone is So cool.
Kevin Bartlett:
Well, it's, you know, a very pragmatic way to look at what Jay and I are doing is
Cindy:
Mm.
Kevin Bartlett:
for me. If you imagine the demonstrate question as massive, how do learners provide evidence of their learning? Very practically, I think CGC, from my own thinking, struggled towards pieces of an answer. I look at Jay's work and I see big pieces of an answer. And it was almost, you know what? If we put all these things together, we might have something quite complete that would be very helpful to schools. So, for example, if you look at John Hattie's work, two of the highest impact elements of education, teacher clarity, collective teacher efficacy. So, I'm thinking, okay, I look at Jay's assessment principles. One of them is alignment. Our assessment should be aligned with our goals. Okay, CGC has a very clear way of creating clear goals. Maybe that's part of the picture. Some of those goals should probably be transfer goals. Okay, we have a model of transfer goals. Not the only model, but a good model. And as Bach said, I think I said earlier, all models are wrong, but some are useful. So I look at this page of J's, this is very pretty. I look at this work of J's, stuff we've done, I think. You know it's almost a complete system if we did some work together and aligned the language. So maybe quickly to run through the framing principles is quite illustrative I think. So I'll paraphrase Jay, but the purpose principle, the primary purpose of assessment is to provide feedback to learners to improve their learning and feedback to teachers to inform their practice. The alignment principle, our assessment should be aligned with our goals. The equity principle, assessment should be fair to all learners. the reliability principle. Any evaluation, any evaluative method needs to look at multiple sources of evidence to be in any way reliable. And then value. We should assess what matters. You know, the old cliche, since we value what we assess, we should assess what we value. Those principles frame this project. So if we go back to practicalities, the primary purpose of assessment is to provide feedback to learners to improve their learning. Well, we talked earlier. CGC has developed and it's uncanny piece of convergent evolution because it's very like a brilliant article written by Jay's former partner Grant Wiggins. I think he talked about seven features of effective assessment. We created four from various sources specific, timely, actionable, respectful. So, okay, we're going to say it's for feedback. Well, what kind of feedback? What are the characteristics of effective feedback? Here's another piece.
What to expect? (26:51)
So we have a lot of pieces of a very complex jigsaw if we put our best ideas together and our best tools together. To go back to a very practical question, honestly, even at this point, what's the product? We don't know. We, in the
Cindy:
Okay.
Kevin Bartlett:
sense of, we haven't decided whether it might be a website. I don't think it'll be an academic product because neither Jay and I, we're both, if I can, if I... can risk speaking for Jay, we're both practitioners more than academics. So it could be, for example, an interactive PDF. It could be a website. But the real thing is we want teachers and schools to be able to say, here are the principles, here are the practices, here are the products. These guys never just say do something. They give you 10 great models, 10 great examples. We're just trying to bridge the gap between the very complex challenge and the multiple libraries of books written about it, and how do you create it in a medium that a school can sit with a leadership team and say, okay, here's our assessment policy for the future. It might take us three years to put it into practice. And for everything these guys suggest is useful, they've given us at least one really good practical example. So I don't know if that doesn't quite answer what's it going to be. But you see what we're... what we're struggling towards in that sense.
Cindy:
I can imagine it already in my head, just that series of questions and for lack of a better, like a planner, a planning template for assessments, that this guide you through that way of thinking about assessment and keeping all these best practices we know theoretically, but putting them front of mind in our assessment
Kevin Bartlett:
What does it
Cindy:
design.
Kevin Bartlett:
actually look like? People need models. You need to see what it looks like.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Kevin Bartlett:
There are five webinars are driven by surprise, five essential questions. What's the big why? And it ends up with what's the big so what? And in between, how to make sure assessment is fair to all learners. For that webinar, we'll be joined by Leanne Jung from Lead Inclusion, who you may know. In a nice kind of generational touch. will be joined briefly by Alexis Wiggins, who's Grant Wiggins' daughter,
Cindy:
Aww.
Kevin Bartlett:
for one of the webinars. She's done an amazing piece of work.
Cindy:
Spider
Kevin Bartlett:
And again,
Cindy:
web?
Kevin Bartlett:
it just has real... I mean, Jay's work with her much more closely than me. She's a kind of new acquaintance of mine. This is her basic idea. As an English teacher, I used to grade every piece of work the kid handed in. It's quite demoralizing for a lot of kids. She learned from a professor, I think, who said, I only give it two responses. publishable, unpublishable. And I give kids multiple revision opportunities. In fact, almost limitless revision opportunities. And she said the difference between grading pieces of work, every piece of work in that way, or helping the kid become an expert, producing an expert publishable piece of work, with unlimited revisions. Now, that's... It just feels to me like that falls into the category of simple aha, not difficult to do, might have some real robust sustainability as an idea. If you put together that idea with, well, how do we give feedback? Well, we make sure it's specific, timely, actionable, respectful. How many pieces of feedback? Two maximum. One thing that could have done very well and the one thing that would improve that work the most.
Cindy:
Okay
Kevin Bartlett:
So we're also trying to pull in people of a similar kind of philosophy, but a particular talent in a particular field. So Leanne, Alex, and then Mike Rutherford of Got Learning, who's created a great tool for evidence curation. So it's a growing team with a clear vision based on five principles, just trying to populate those principles with a toolkit to move all this good theory into every classroom in a school in ways that teachers think, well, finally, some common sense, as well as our passion for getting away from judging kids on easy to measure tests and making that determine that kid's future. So there is a kind of philosophical passion behind this beyond just the technical.
College Entrance: The Thorn in the Side of Assessment Transformation? (31:43)
Cindy:
So if we're going about trying to change assessment in schools, often when I talk to people, if we begin with the end in mind, that's kind of where the problem is, right? College admittance, having quantifiable evidence that a kid's ready for college seems to be the biggest barrier to assessment. Have you started to tackle that question of what that might look like, or is that not part of the scope of this work?
Jay McTighe:
Well, I would jump in here and say, I think there are two driving forces and factors that impact school and classroom assessment, and you've named one of them most clearly. The other, though, is just accountability testing. And I can speak especially for public schools in the US and increasingly in Canada, England, Australia. and other places where there are high stakes accountability tests, those are driving forces. I can't tell you how many times I've heard teachers say, and in some cases school leaders say, even though Kevin and I are advocates for more authentic performance-based assessments, people will say, oh, that's all well and good, but we're being held accountable for results on state or national tests that primarily use selected response or multiple choice formats. So why should we spend time, or in some cases, they might even say waste time on having kids do more authentic tasks, when we're not being judged on those, we're being judged on multiple choice tests. So those are both significant impacts.
College portfolios: The silver bullet? (33:10)
Relative to the first, the higher ed piece, there's no silver bullet answer. In a sense, it's out of our control what colleges and universities use for their admission criteria. I will say, though, an interesting and, I think, hopeful sign, at least in the US, is being navigated by a group called the Mastery Transcript Consortium. If you don't know about that, listeners can view online Mastery Transcript. propose alternative forms of evidence to present to colleges and universities for admission. And it's largely literally a portfolio of student work, growth over time, work on authentic tasks and projects, not just the easy to quantify, you know, GPA and a standardized test score. Now, having said that, you know, the Mastery Transcript Consortium has been working with leading universities in North America. And there's still a practical challenge. For instance, someone from the MTC group said that early on, he contacted the admissions director at Duke university, which is a prominent, um, university in the U S and contacted the admissions officer who told him that they had something like 30,000 admission requests for early admission. That's not even the general population.
Cindy:
overwhelming.
Jay McTighe:
And so there's that practical. challenge of how might a university admissions officer go through 30,000 student portfolios. In the big universities, this remains a challenge, but there is a growing openness, particularly in smaller universities or colleges, to looking at a wider variety of factors than just multiple choice standardized test scores or a grade point average. Having said all this, I want to bring in the second factor and make a comment about it. The second factor I mentioned is the reality that most external accountability tests use a selected response format, multiple choice, or occasionally brief constructed response where students do a short answer. Now there are a few places that have writing assessments that are more extended, but that's not the norm in my experience. And so the question of Well, why should we do anything that's more authentic or performance based when we're being held accountable on much
Cindy:
No.
Jay McTighe:
narrower measures? Makes a faulty assumption. It mistakes the measures for the goals. Right. Look at the goals of any standards or provincial outcomes or CGC. Those goals are not just low level facts or basic skills that are easily
Cindy:
floor.
Jay McTighe:
tested. Those are, that's the floor. They are much more robust. And so the idea to say that we can't or shouldn't work on higher order thinking or engage kids in authentic learning and performance because we have low level tests again, mistakes, the measures for the goals. Number one, number two, and this is a dirty little secret. Do an item analysis of standardized test results. And many places publish the results so you can do that. Here's what you'll find. The most widely missed items on standardized tests are not by and large low level items of factual knowledge or basic skills. They're items that require reasoning, interpretation. Even though the format is selected response, the cognitive demand of those items is level three on depth of knowledge, not level one. In other words, people conflate the format with the difficulty level and think it's multiple choice, they're testing facts, we just have to have the kids memorize the facts and do a lot of test prep so they'll be ready for the multiple choice. And our conclusion is to the contrary, the most widely missed items require reasoning, understanding, inference, analysis. Don't be confused by the format. Therefore, the best test prep is to give kids lots of experience transferring their learning to new situations, applying their learning, having to explain their reasoning. Even if the test doesn't require explanation, building understanding does. And that's where our classroom assessments should be grounded, in my view, in performance-based assessments of understanding and transfer.
Cindy:
Trevor McKenzie has a cool point on this. He says that assessment is a data set and we don't have to necessarily throw away those formal tests, that they do give us some information, especially if we take the time to analyze it, but it's just one piece of data. So if we neglect all this other rich body of evidence, we're doing a disservice to ourselves and to our students. So I think it's like a nice message to be able to bring back to your staff who's kind of struggling against the weight of assessment.
Jay’s Mic Drop Moment (38:43)
Jay McTighe:
Here's an analogy on that both Kevin and I relate to. Kevin more than me because he's an outstanding photographer. But think about assessment as photography. So any single assessment measure, a multiple choice test, a fill in the blank, a matching, a standardized test, a performance task, a project or an observation is like a snapshot in that those things provide a moment in time picture of what students know, understand and can do. But to Trevor's point, Good assessment should be thought of as a photo album, right? A collection of pictures taken over time. Because the very essence of assessment, assessment is an inferential process, right? It's not that a test is valid or not. The more precise conception is, does the test and its results permit valid inferences about learning? And we know that our inferences are enhanced and more reliable and more valid. If the measure is aligned with the goals, hence we need different kind of pictures in our photo album, some wide angle, some close up to assess different goals. And secondly, more evidence is better than less. Our inferences are grounded and more sound if we're looking at multiple sources of data. So Trevor is absolutely correct. The photo album is a good metaphor. And my essential question. brings it to the fore, are we assessing everything we value, or just the things easiest to test and grade?
Cindy:
Mic drop.
Jay McTighe:
Mm.
Kevin Bartlett:
And the, yeah, on Trevor's point and Jay's point, we were very careful in the sense that we're not setting out to replace testing. It's not gonna happen, is it? Not in my lifetime anyway. But we don't, it's the old sufficient necessary. For some purposes, and that goes to Jay's work on audience, purpose, medium, stakeholder, communication. For some purposes. These forms of testing may be necessary, but not sufficient. And it's we just if you just think as a parent or someone who loves kids, you know, the kids who make enormous progress. I like Thomas Gusky's work that I learned from Jay. Performance progress process, you know, the point arrived at the distance traveled. The process factors that may have influenced the progress and the and the and the performance. We're trying to enrich the assessment field in ways that are not so onerous that teachers won't do them and just create a chance for kids to show what they've learned in different ways and not just when they sit down to a test. And we're very hopeful because there's a huge number of teachers who believe that and we're great believers in our own profession. So and also as Jay made the point about MTC Mastery Transcript, we have a meeting with them. I have a meeting with them because I was on a different podcast with them and Susie from MTC and just to see if we can, how far our balanced assessment system and the idea of transfer goals might align with MTC. New England, NIASC are also in that conversation. We have strong connections with accrediting bodies because they're evaluators in a way but of schools and some of them, there are parallels between the assessment of an organization and the assessment of a teacher and the assessment of a child. Zones of proximal development. Kid has a zone of proximal development, so does the teacher, so does an organization. So part of our work has been to find others who might together form a more complete system. Because clearly if we have the technology together, evidence is smart, usable, curated ways to facilitate conversations with parents. If that can translate into a portfolio, if there's an increasing number of universities willing to accept that portfolio. put that together with the principles we work with, with clarity of goal, with the reliability of evidence, et cetera. We might just have an alternative worldview, an alternative parallel universe where kids can actually show what they learned in a variety of ways, which won't overwhelm teachers, which universities will accept. And then, you know, I can go birding
Cindy:
Done.
Kevin Bartlett:
and they can play pickleball and...
Cindy:
All in a day's work, right?
Kevin Bartlett:
Yeah, but anyway, it's a big, it's Simon Sinek's book, The Infinite Game. He said, some companies and people play the finite game, beat the opposition, make a quick profit, get in, get out. We know we're playing the infinite game. We will never achieve all the things we aspire to. But we think it's, and that's from his book as well, it's kind of a just cause. which is an inclusive, just cause. We just believe we can make things better. It won't be a complete solution. It will go, the work will go on. It's in the nature of aspirational goals. They're never fully achieved anyway, but that doesn't mean you can't keep pushing. So
Cindy:
it
Kevin Bartlett:
it's
Cindy:
forward.
Kevin Bartlett:
evolving as we go, but you can see what we're trying to do and what some of the bits are, how it emerges as well, the result of our next few conversations. Anyway, look out for the webinars. There'll be five webinars in the construction site. And some of the people listening here might want to sign up for those because we'll go into all these things in much more depth.
School Leaders’ Countdown: The Final 3! (44:26)
Cindy:
We'll link that in our show notes for you guys. Okay, I've got a set of final three questions. It's like the fire round of questions that I ask every guest. Are you guys ready for our final three?
Kevin Bartlett:
Manchester United.
Cindy:
Okay, question number
Jay McTighe:
It's right
Cindy:
one.
Jay McTighe:
distance.
Cindy:
Oh, why did
Kevin Bartlett:
Thanks
Cindy:
you
Kevin Bartlett:
for
Cindy:
say
Kevin Bartlett:
watching!
Cindy:
Jake?
Jay McTighe:
Nothing. Go ahead.
Cindy:
Okay, number one. What is the book that has had the most profound impact on your practice?
Kevin Bartlett:
Good to Great by Jim Collins. Not an educational book, but it really distills out what makes organizations successful. If every CGC is good to great, find your hedge principle, get the right people on the bus, face the brutal facts, use technology accelerators. So for me, it's actually a business book, Good to Great.
Jay McTighe:
and for
Cindy:
I
Jay McTighe:
me,
Cindy:
don't read
Jay McTighe:
understanding
Cindy:
it.
Jay McTighe:
by design.
Cindy:
Your own book?
Kevin Bartlett:
Ha
Jay McTighe:
Well,
Kevin Bartlett:
ha.
Jay McTighe:
you asked how it influenced my practice and it's what I do, so yes.
Cindy:
I love that. I see it on the shelf behind you and it just makes me flash back to college and my master's degree, my first curriculum class, and being exposed to backwards design and just being like, what is this magic? So.
Kevin Bartlett:
I thought of saying understanding by design, but I thought you'd throw that bromance thing out again.
Cindy:
Oh, the bromance is strong. I can feel it. Okay, sorry. Question number two, my friends. This is my personal research question, and I'm curious, schools and workplaces tend to kind of fall into different camps, like the sustainable, let's make sure everybody's happy and joyous, and let's make sure we're producing and really hitting our marks. So how do we find that balance between highly joyous and highly productive workspaces? Yeah, you're getting pointed
Kevin Bartlett:
What's the
Cindy:
at
Kevin Bartlett:
third
Cindy:
Kevin.
Kevin Bartlett:
question?
Cindy:
How do we, oh what's the third, you want to skip, you can't skip my research question.
Kevin Bartlett:
No, no, I'm good. You know, I've come to really believe that intentionality is really important. So to be in a school which is actually asking those kinds of questions, how do we get this balance right? I think once we start being intentional and systemic and asking those questions, that's a big step in the right direction. So yeah, I think I have a longer answer, which is... I'll try and make it brief. I mentioned it before in our earlier talk. We are programmed to enjoy learning. We get a dopamine rush when we get something right. You could therefore argue that if kids aren't enjoying school, they're not learning. So I would say if you get the pitch of the learning and the challenge right, you'll make enormous progress, and it will feel more joyous. I'll tell you what I'm suspicious of, Cindy. We need to focus on wellbeing this year. COVID's been tough. So instead of the PD session we had planned with the teachers, we're gonna have a party because we need to care for our teachers' wellbeing. In my experience, and Cambridge did some research on this, joy and happiness in part comes from four things. Getting good at something we care about, partnering with good people, having control over our key life decisions, and also physical health. I think we create joy in schools by agreeing on our directions, keeping it simple and getting good at it together. That's when I see teachers happy and kids happy, honestly. So it's not, well, happiness is here and the nitty gritty is over here. I think they're tightly connected. I think happiness comes from, what are we trying to do? Wouldn't that be great for kids? Let's get good at that. That's to me where the fun of schools is. Not, well, we've got to stop doing that to be happy. I just think they're tightly connected.
Cindy:
Beautiful.
Kevin Bartlett:
performance
Cindy:
I hear a
Kevin Bartlett:
and
Cindy:
lot
Kevin Bartlett:
what
Cindy:
of.
Kevin Bartlett:
you care about makes you happy, I think.
Cindy:
I hear a lot of Bandura's language in that answer, the intentionality for thought. That's cool. Thank you. Jay?
Kevin Bartlett:
I was just buying Jay time.
Jay McTighe:
Yeah, well, you know, Kevin's answer was elegant. And one of the things I admire about him is that kind of clarity and practical experience doing that. You know, the schools in which he's worked. Have, you know, evidence you can and you can feel it when you visit schools, you can feel it's a happy place versus it's a stressful place or an unhappy place. And I think he nailed the characteristics that can join those two elements. So nothing to add, which is unusual for me.
Cindy:
Beautiful. All right, final question, my friends. Both of you are just thought leaders in education. You've changed the game for so many of us. If you could stand up on a stage and tell every educational leader one piece of advice that you think would really change their practice and then you wish you knew early on, what would that piece of advice be? And Jay, you've got to start this one.
Jay McTighe:
Well, mine will be, no surprise, a backward design answer, and it will parallel what Kevin just said, and that is be clear about the most important learning goals that you have for students. transmit those or engage staff and colleagues in exploring those goals and hopefully agreeing to them. And then collaboratively plan backward in terms of how we're going to get there to achieve these goals and that includes the backward design elements of assessment, instruction, curriculum design. but also systemic factors that need to be considered. I'll give you a quick example with the risk of going too long to my answer. If we want to include more authentic performance-based assessments in the mix, and we're working with secondary teachers who might have seven class periods and a teaching load of 100 to 150 kids a day, we've got to bite the bullet on the systemic factor of when will teachers have time to look at all that work that students produce on performance tests and projects. So that implies a scheduling modification if it doesn't already exist that allows teachers time to collaborate and planning and especially to look at student work in teams often known as PLC teams. And it without that schedule and the expectation that we're going to support teachers in looking at student work together, the richness of the performance tasks will not be fully realized. So, just to summarize, start with the end in mind, be clear about the most important goals you're after, and then plan everything backward, including school structures like schedule, use of time, PD, focus, etc.
Cindy:
So begin with the end in mind and then give time to the things you value. Beautiful. Kevin.
Kevin Bartlett:
Same idea, might say it slightly differently. Isaiah Berlin's famous essay on the fox and the hedgehog, and Jim Collins, the hedgehog principle. I'm trying to remember, I was gonna say Heraclitus, but it wasn't, I know it's a different Greek philosopher. Couple of thousand years ago, same idea. There are hedgehog people and there are fox people. Fox people see the world as fragmented activity and they don't make the connections. The hedgehog sees the world as one thing. It rolls up in a ball, it survived for millions of years. So seeing the whole thing through one lens that then systematize everything else. So the same as Jay. The nuance for me, just the tweak on it would be, it's kind of the end in mind. Define learning and the learning process, have that drive. the teaching process, the goal setting process, the planning process, and therefore the scheduling process, the budgeting process. All process is leading towards that shared vision of learning and translated then into the transfer goals of the end in mind, which is the kinds of kids who would benefit from this learning. So it's the same thing, it's the simplicity, it's the focus, it's seeing the connections between everything. And then don't get distracted by the bullet train at platform three, because... There'll be another one along in a minute, believe me.
Cindy:
Shiny objects.
Kevin Bartlett:
So it's the same thing. It's the clear vision on learning what kind of kids we're trying to produce, but then recognizing how that influences everything we do.
Cindy:
Very golden circle, right? Start with our Y and let
Kevin Bartlett:
Absolutely.
Cindy:
that. Beautiful. Well, my friends, I can't believe that I had the opportunity to talk to you both at the same time. I admire you both so much in the work that you've done. And this was just like a really fun conversation. So thank you so much for being here today.
Kevin Bartlett:
No, it's a great pleasure. Thanks. Thanks for the invitation, Cindy.
Jay McTighe:
Yeah, likewise.
