21st Century Learning and Minnesota School District Accountability Systems

Byron Richard, Education Research Coordinator
Perpich Center for Arts Education

The vision of incremental, spiraling curriculum to support student achievement, though articulated at the beginning of Goals 2000, has been largely unrealized.  Several factors have kept realization of the promise of standards-based arts education at arm’s length.  Arts standards benchmarks, as well as standards benchmarks in all subject areas have not been well-conceived as related and progressive learning targets.  Instead, they have been treated as unrelated curricular topics with little or no alignment to reliable classroom level assessments (Marzano 2006).  Additionally, benchmarks have not been constructed with a progressive taxonomy of learning targets in mind, allowing students to move from knowledge to reasoning and finally to creating, performing and responding in the arts, the most complex kinds of knowledge utilization (Guskey and Marzano 2001).  With an overemphasis on knowledge, state standards have tended to increase in numbers of knowledge benchmarks from year to year rather than build toward more sophisticated, and arguably more valuable, cognitive processes; such as, reasoning, problem solving and application.

With the benefit of clear thinking about learning targets and classroom assessment (Stiggins 1994), the newly revised Minnesota Academic Standards in the Arts (Minnesota Department of Education 2008) offer school districts focused and sequential learning targets that lead to high levels of cognitive activity.  How will we work to realize the promise of incremental, spiraling curriculum to support the highest level of student learning for the 21st Century?

Teachers in several Minnesota school districts are leading the way by engaging in energizing 21st Century professional development (Partnership for 21st Century Skills 2006). Collaborative teacher teams in each arts area and grade range (K-3, 4&5, 6-8 and 9-12) are mapping district arts curriculum and placing shared or common assessment activities to yield the best and most useful information about student learning and achievement in the arts. 

These teacher teams’ curriculum mapping activities developed as a result of the leadership of arts teacher colleagues within their districts who participated in the Arts Quality Teaching Networks, formerly known as the Arts Best Practice Networks.  Through collegial professional learning in these networks, teachers acquired knowledge and skill in professional inquiry, constructed student-centered incremental learning activities based on the arts processes—create, perform and respond—to help students meet large learning goals (standards benchmarks), and worked with peers to collect student work samples and examine these collections to understand the level of student achievement they show, and ultimately to make adjustments in classroom instruction and assessment so that more students can be successful.

In a similar fashion these district-based teacher teams will use their assessment maps to collect student work as a result of classroom assessment activities through the year, examine levels of student achievement on these assessment activities and use this information to revise and refine curricular pathways and instructional strategies to improve student achievement.  During the 2007-2008 school year Minnesota teachers in the Duluth and Bemidji school districts completed substantial work, and teams from the Columbia Heights, Rochester and Worthington school districts recently completed substantial mapping this summer.

Even in these beginning stages of constructing standards-based, arts accountability systems, teachers have articulated clear benefits for their students and for their professional learning. Teacher focus groups from the Bemidji School District reported the following perceptions to The Improve Group, the Perpich Center project evaluator:

Teachers said assessment and curriculum mapping:

• Gave them an enjoyable opportunity and process to dig into their curriculums and see what they are already incorporating in terms of standards
• Affirmed that they are doing a good job and allowed them to feel proud of their work
• Gave them an opportunity to document learning involved and the importance of arts education for other educators, administrators and parents
• Allows them to document exactly what students are learning
• Gave them the opportunity to discover what is missing in their instruction and curriculum and they appreciate being able to so clearly see the “holes” or gaps in terms of what they need to add
• Was not about “reshaping the whole classroom”  and they appreciate that the Perpich staff works with what they are already doing in the classroom

Teachers said having a shared curriculum and shared assessments:

• Gives them a user friendly document to share what needs to be taught and assessed which they can share with  new teachers who come into the district
• Supports students who move from school to school within the district during the year; they won’t miss key concepts or skills because they are taught at different times in different schools (mobility within the district is high)

Teachers said the facilitation of the process:

• Was important and they would not have done this on their own
• Kept them on track andprovided direction.  Their colleagues may be knowledgeable but Perpich Center staff asked the right questions to keep them going
• Supported them in being more productive in two days than they have ever been before.  It was more productive than any other curriculum revision they’ve ever been through.   They were “amazed” by what they accomplished in two days

Once the planning phase of drafting the curriculum and assessment maps is complete, teachers execute their map by teaching and collecting the agreed upon evidence of student learning from the shared or common assessment activities.  With student work in hand teachers convene in arts area-alike and grade-alike teams (Queensland School Curriculum Council 2002) to examine and consider 1) the effectiveness of the assessment activity, 2) their judgments about the quality of learning and level of student achievement, and 3) the implications of this new information for improving classroom arts instruction and for revising their district curriculum maps and assessment plans.

These 21st Century professional development activities (Partnership for 21st Century Skills 2006) build collective teacher capacities so that school districts can align their professional development goals and strategies and their student achievement goals and strategies with district responsibilities to report data to the State Department of Education and to local public audiences.  Differing from high-cost standardized tests, this coherent and focused system of student, classroom and district accountability promises to provide data on student achievement with high value for improvement of classroom instruction and curriculum, as well as meaningful advocacy for arts education and for education generally.

Bibliography

Marzano, R.  (2006)  Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work.  Reston, VA: ASCD.

Guskey, T.R and Marzano, R.  (2001)  Designing a New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Inc.

Stiggins, R., Arter, J. et al.,  (2004)  Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, Doing it Right – Using it Well.  Assessment Training Institute.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills.  (2006)  Results that Matter:21st Century Skills and High School Reform.

Queensland School curriculum Council, (2002)  Consistency of Teacher Judgment Research Report, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, www.uq.edu.au/qscc.