Proposing Outcomes Oriented Learning as form of Individualized Assessment

In this section of the course, Dr. Cope and Dr. Kalantzis presented the idea of individualized learning, as a contrast to the "one size fits all" paradigm that has been prominent in most educational systems ever since the industrial revolution. They then present ways in which current technology can enable more personalized learning processes, by allowing students to advance at their own pace and explore unique areas of interest. However, individualized learning cannot be detached from new forms of assessment, which must be individualized as well. If eventually all students are judged by similar criteria, the extent to which leaning can be personalized remains limited. Consequently, in order for successful individualized learning processes to take place, more individualized approaches to academic assessment must be formed.

The educational system has traditionally been setting unified bars for measuring "success", and usually applied the same set of expectations to all students of a certain age group (set aside "special needs" students on the one hand and "gifted" students on the other). In contrast, in other fields of social intervention, it is largely understood that setting individual desired outcomes, rather than unified criteria, is more relevant when working with people. In this post, I would like to present some of these ideas, borrowed from social work and social services, and suggest a paradigm for creating individualized learning programs, based on my work with my country's social services, as well as my former experience within the educational system.

The Outcomes Oriented Practice Framework

The Outcomes Oriented Practice framework is a set of guidelines for planning, conducting and assessing individualized interventions in the social services. It's based on an adaptation of the logic model, which is a graphic aid that is usually applied to programs. The idea is that progress within interventions should be assessed in relation to individualized objectives, which are set based on a primary assessment. The setting of the objectives and their tracking are preformed collaboratively, giving the service user an active role. They are organized and tracked using a specifically designed information management system (or learning management system). While designed for the social services, I believe it can easily be adapted to the field of education, to produce more individualized learning programs, and generate individualized assessment. Unlike approaches that promote the use of technology for generating the personal programs, this paradigm focuses on a joint effort by the teacher, acting more as a learning guide, and the student. Technological systems are utilized to support these practices, but are in no means stand-alone.

The framework includes 4 main components:

The primary assessment, or mapping, stage includes:

Attributes - Features and characteristics that must be acknowledged and considered when planning, but are not the target of the intervention. In educational settings, these may be features like age or disabilities (learning or other).

Needs – Areas which need to be strengthened to achieve prosperity. In education, these can be specific fields of knowledge, but also cognitive skills such as reading comprehension or math, and meta-cognitive skills, like those presented by Dr. Cope: skills like approaching a problem, organizing thoughts, etc.

Strengths – These are the qualities and traits that represent the abilities and the resources available to the individual. For a student, these can be unique areas of expertise, prominent hobbies, personality traits such as friendliness or leadership skills, and many more. The strengths can be harnessed to progressing towards the objectives that are set, and give the individual a sense of ownership of their own progress. Acknowledging the strengths represents a view that respects the uniqueness of the individual.

Following the primary assessment, personal objectives are set, directed at minimizing the needs and building on the strengths. Throughout the intervention, the objectives are monitored and can be altered based on changing circumstances, realizations or progress.

After setting the objectives, outputs and activities are selected to promote their reach. For instance, if a student has a difficulty in organizing information, specific assignments and practices in this field can be incorporated in their program.

The progress is assessed in relation the personal objectives which were set – and not relative to a unified benchmark. Also, what is being evaluated is the intervention itself rather than the student. Failure to advance towards the objectives set may require a better understanding of the needs, or changes in the program. There is no "grade" which is in relation to other students, but rather only an indication of improvement vs stagnation (or regression) in comparison to the personal objectives set.

The Outcomes Oriented Practice Framework and large-scale assessment

Having personally made the shift from the educational system to the social services, I believe that one of the main obstacles in the way of personalized education is large-scale standardized testing. Again – if everyone is measured against the same standard, the range for personalization becomes very limited. Large scale testing has two main goals: selection on the hand (like the SATs in the USA), and evaluation of the schools and the school system on the other (like the international PISA tests). While standardized assessment is irrelevant to individualized learning, there are other methods for evaluating a school or an educational system at a large scale. In short, the assessment addresses the process rather than the outcome, by ensuring that there are standardized goal setting and monitoring systems. Appropriately designed data management systems for creating personal learning plans can also aggregate data and be informative regarding the types of objectives, outputs and actions set for types or groups of students, and the level of their success in regards to the students' personal starting point. Well crafted systems can also produce personal progress reports. These possibilities, enabled by modern technologies, are what can make these kinds of systems keys to the advancement and improvement of educational systems.

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When thinking about the way educational systems are built today, and their focus on relative, rather than individualized assessment, it makes me wonder what the underlying goal of the educational system really is. Rather than a tool for advancing individuals, it is a means of selection into higher education and into the workforce. I believe that only disconnecting between the systems designed to educate and the systems designed to select and sort, can truly individualized learning take place.

The framework I presented here is an adaptation from work I did for Social Services in my home country. Unfortunately, most of the theoretical writing has not been translated to English, so I will not reference it here. To whomever is interested, I will suggest some follow-up reading on more approaches to individualized learning plans and assessment (mainly using plans generated by computerized systems rather than by the teacher and student):

Caputi, V., & Garrido, A. (2015). Student-oriented planning of e-learning contents for Moodle. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 53, 115-127.‏

Hwang, G. J., Kuo, F. R., Yin, P. Y., & Chuang, K. H. (2010). A heuristic algorithm for planning personalized learning paths for context-aware ubiquitous learning. Computers & Education, 54(2), 404-415.‏

Garrido, A., Morales, L., & Serina, I. (2016). On the use of case-based planning for e-learning personalization. Expert Systems with Applications, 60, 1-15.‏

Wanner, T., & Palmer, E. (2015). Personalising learning: Exploring student and teacher perceptions about flexible learning and assessment in a flipped university course. Computers & Education, 88, 354-369

West, D. M. (2011). Using technology to personalize learning and assess students in real-time. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

I also invite you to watch this video which nicely sums up many of the fallacies of the educational system today, and suggests alternatives that are compatible with the spirit of this course.