Technology in Motion

 

A CHANGE AGENT TAKES ON THE ASSESSMENT CHALLENGE

Yokohama International School in Yokohama, Japan has been an epicenter of innovation since its founding. According to the school website, neither natural disasters nor war has prevented YIS from bringing international influences together for the benefit of foreign students:

Lockwood is beginning his fifth year on staff at YIS, and he has grown accustomed to earthquakes. “When an earthquake hits,” he explained, “often the hardest decision is whether to get out of bed or not. The buildings here are well constructed for withstanding earthquakes. The steel bars in the frames are so close together you almost don’t need the concrete.”

Whatever his indecision when his apartment begins to sway, Lockwood is all in favor of shaking things up at school. The topic stirring on his mind this day: student assessment.

The Word about YIS from iR’s CTO/EVP Product Development Charlie Bailey is that this client brings interesting challenges to the table. “Brian understands that with technology, just about anything is possible,” Bailey offered. “The trick is to make appropriate choices.”

On hearing this, Lockwood replied, “I enjoy it when Charlie comes onsite. Charlie is brilliant; he’s a teacher, a chemist. When we get together, we talk about fantastical ideas, like a day in the future when assessments will be made by reading brainwaves. No tests or reports. If teachers didn’t have to invest so much energy into assessing their students, they could spend their time teaching. Imagine, without time taken out for assessment, teachers could teach and students could learn.

“I look at the strategies scientists use to figure out what animals are thinking. Those animals aren’t taking tests. Why couldn’t you apply the same techniques to student assessment? Students could be learning and having fun. It’s kind of crazy to think this way, but every measure says we are not preparing kids for their lives."

By way of illustration, Lockwood referenced a talk given by educational consultant Alan November at The Harvey School in October 2007, entitled "Three (3) skills our kids need to succeed in today's world."

The skills and attitudes which November stresses as being absolutely essential to students' success in the future are:

“Schools are not teaching what students need to know to be successful in the future. I would like to see the colleges lead by changing what students have to do to get into the top institutions—for example, they might evaluate applicants according to Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences.

“What if the top colleges changed the way they assess students? What if the top colleges were bold enough to lead in this, to challenge the rest of us? The colleges have to come first.

“Social media and technology are forcing schools to change. Professor Wesch at the University of Kansas teaches ‘digital anthropology.’ He uses social media; he is teaching students to ask questions. If you know how to ask questions, that’s how you proceed in life. Professors are frustrated with doing things as they have always done them—students are interested in surfing the web, where you can get information instantaneously.”

Does Lockwood train teachers how to use technology in the classroom?

“I am a great user of technology for this institution, but I do not believe I can tell a teacher what to do in the classroom. I can model behavior; maybe teachers will be inspired to follow along. We have weekly meetings of the IT department with curriculum coordinators and other staff where we discuss a wide range of IT and learning issues, and within that meeting itself we try to show a video—for example, Seth Godin speaking at the TED Conference. We stream our meetings live on the internet. After the meeting, we put the video into a blog so anyone in the world can watch it.

“There is a selfish reason for doing meetings this way, as I don’t like taking notes. This is my fix—when meetings are recorded, I can catch things I forgot or would have missed. It’s also professional discovery: one of the goals of streaming our meetings was to prepare for doing a live stream of Graduation. Our meetings perfected the system before we used it for a major event.

“We are discovering different benefits from this approach: Parents are liking it, streaming graduation was a huge hit. One member of our department was the chat moderator; I was the camera man. People from remote locations put in lots of requests. We had someone in New York City congratulating the Class of 2009. It’s interesting and it's constant learning and fun.”

From your perspective, what is special about Yokohama International School?

“YIS is distinctive for its history of not being afraid to try different things. I was surprised when I first came here. I had expected to find a conservative school, but what I discovered was a school that is exploring alternative approaches to education.

“The YIS Middle School offers a good example. In my experience, international schools usually follow a traditional path; they tend to mirror public schools in the U.S. If assessments in the U.S. are grade-based, for example, we would expect to see that.

“In our Middle School, we have what we call the Humankind Core program. It is an alternative education approach in social studies.” From the web site:

Lockwood explained, “It is significant that our school is attempting to approach education in a different way.”

iR has completed a major customization for YIS that will support IB assessment. Lockwood outlined some of the shifts: “This year, we introduced different methods of assessment. We are moving to criteria- based assessments that enhance the depth and breadth of formative assessment we give students and parents. Grade-based summative assessment alone is not an effective way for us to assess our students’ performance and help improve student learning.

“We are using blogging as an assessment tool. Some students in our Middle School will create digital portfolios in the coming year. All Middle School students have to have a portfolio. Teachers choose whether to make a digital or an analog portfolio. Students have their own word press blogs: they can put video in there, as well as audio. We aim to engage the teachers, students, and parents in a commenting process. We seek to create an authentic feedback system for that student.

“A student may write a blog pertaining to a particular interest they are passionate about. The blog will invite feedback from parents, teachers in the school, and perhaps others in the world. Maybe they will hear from a person who is an expert in the world on that topic. Maybe the student will put google ads on their blog, and actually will get income from their site. There are so many layers of quick feedback available, so many ‘what ifs.’

“While I do not teach the Middle School students, I helped to set up the technology for this project, so IT is the invisible partner. Edublogs partnered with YIS as well. We have decentralized the IT department. Our teachers are really in charge of IT. The power shift in IT is toward user-centric self-direction.”

Lockwood understands how to support classroom use of social media because he is out there himself, exploring a range of platforms. “I am very much into Twitter. I don’t like to write. I am more likely to share bite size ideas. I will write a blog once in a while, when a longer explanation is called for. It has been a struggle to figure out what is the most appropriate social media. There is not one size-fits-all social media. I still blog a little bit. Sometimes people on twitter ask me for more about what I’ve tweeted. I love twitter.”

Lockwood’s relationship with inRESONANCE began in Chestnut Hill, MA more than six years ago.

“I first learned about inRESONANCE when I worked at Brimmer & May School. Brimmer is a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools. I love that whole system of asking essential questions. Brimmer & May was looking at student information systems when I was there. I was interested in Powerschool. The head of school checked out iR. The administration led the challenge. They knew what our needs were. And so Brimmer & May selected KEYSTONE by inRESONANCE.

“I left Brimmer & May before KEYSTONE was implemented there, but when I came to this job, YIS was in desperate need for a student information system. I recommended that they look at KEYSTONE, and led that investigation. We are now beginning our fourth year of using KEYSTONE. It definitely works well for us.

“We have so many different assessment criteria. With KEYSTONE, we can customize the database to reflect the uniqueness of our school. With KEYSTONE, we are not changing our practice for the system. With other systems, you have to follow a grade-based system. Other databases do not accommodate the elaborate systems that we have at YIS.

“I know only a little bit of FileMaker, it’s fairly simple. We have gotten into some deep customizations with iR. To be able to customize yourself, you have to be using your database day-in and day-out. I do the tiny things. I’d rather have iR do the complex customizations.

“We have so many projects happening with iR right now. We’re linking KEYSTONE with the Nova timetabling program, import/export mostly. This summer, we’re developing the Middle School/High School assessment tool, and we’re doing continual tweaking. We’re looking at an elementary school assessment system based on the “First Steps” from Australia. It’s about continuums, it’s pretty neat. That’s another benefit of working at YIS: because it’s international, we are always being introduced to systems used in different countries and can identify the best. It’s very stimulating in that way.

“We’ve invested a lot of money in technologies that work well. Our wireless system hardly goes down. We use Macs, and give full access to all our teachers, so they have a feeling of ownership on their computers and other devices. We place no restrictions. We believe in freedom of choice.”

What does their user agreement look like?

“Many schools adopt the philosophy, ‘You are not allowed to do this or that.’ Before coming to YIS, I would sanitize the digital learning experience blocking any site or service not deemed educational—but students, they know how to get around these walls. I found my self spending time policing, not teaching. When restricted, students learn how to break the rules and this forms a negative relationship with your students. At YIS, we aim to teach students to take responsibility, and when we identify students who are slick with technology, we make sure they come in and help us out.”

What would you say to someone about KEYSTONE?

“What I tell people who ask me about how to choose a student information system is this: What is your assessment system? How are you assessing? That will lead you to the system that is best for you. I look at the inRESONANCE system as being about paying attention to detail. With KEYSTONE the potential of a report is unlimited; what you could do with the other systems will be more generic.”

Learn more about Yokohama International School

1. web site for Yokohama International School, About Us>History http://www.yis.ac.jp/page.cfm?p=10    back
2. web site for Yokohama International School, At School>Middle School>Courses http://www.yis.ac.jp/page.cfm?p=1225    back