Assessment for the 21st Century: Insight

Welcome to Florida State University and the Assessment for the 21st Century Symposium Series, hosted by the FSU College of Education and its Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems.

The Series brings together policymakers, agency officials, assessment specialists, educational researchers, scholars, and school administrators in a forum to discuss advances in assessment that support learning in the 21st Century. The sub-title of our symposium (Insight) is motivated by the belief that the goal of assessment should shift from simply obtaining numbers to providing insight. Toward this end, we need to determine what domains and skills we value and want to enhance for a society producing knowledge workers, not only service workers.

This symposium is intended to generate fresh thinking about assessment. We already know that individual differences among students have powerful effects on learning, and these effects can be quantified and predicted. Furthermore, new technologies can capitalize on these effects to the benefit of teachers and students (as well as administrators, policy makers, and parents). This symposium will focus on how to effectively and efficiently integrate appropriate assessment and instruction to improve student learning and education in general.

The symposium has two interweaving themes: (a) innovative assessment design to support 21st Century educational needs, and (b) assessment issues relevant to state departments of education (e.g., teacher and student testing, and accountability), with a focus on issues of interest in Florida. Our three keynote speakers have done innovative research on assessment for 21st century skills and also understand the broader policy implications and challenges of educational reform. Our keynote speakers include: James Gee (Arizona State)—an expert on literacy and computer gaming who has some intriguing ideas about assessment in context; Russell Almond (ETS)—who co-formulated Evidence Centered Assessment Design (e.g., Mislevy, Almond, & Steinberg, 2003), which is a framework with implications for measuring growth, assessing special-needs students, portfolio assessment, among other areas; and Mari Pearlman, now a private consultant, who for many years oversaw several important higher-education assessment programs at ETS including the assessment used to evaluate many entering teachers, the Praxis examinations.  

To discuss the challenges surrounding ways to improve education in general and assessment in particular, the College of Education is honored to welcome leading assessment and measurement experts as well as other scholars who will respond to the views of our keynote speakers and present the latest assessment-related research. Researchers from FSU and other Florida institutions will join the discussion to address how research might inform and shape a set of policy recommendations for Florida’s schools. All conference attendees will have opportunities to comment and ask questions of our speakers, and to discuss ideas with participants at various times throughout the symposium. Finally, we plan to publish papers from the symposium as chapters in an edited book.

Thank you for coming, and remember: Measure twice. Cut once. 
Betsy Becker & Valerie Shute—Assessment Symposium Organizers
Educational Psychology and Learning Systems
College of Education, FSU