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"If we've let the fickleness of history and public policy describe the bizarre set of standards (looking at you, Math) and therefore the metrics that we'll measure all students against, you'll end up with a system designed for those metrics. Instead, if you define your own measures, and actually study longitudinally their validity, we'll end up in a place where perhaps we'll value the emotional-intelligence development of a teenager above their ability to comply with outdated curricula. Maybe we'll come to value the nuance of entrepreneurial thought opposed to attempting to cram a line of reasoning they stole wholesale from Reddit into five paragraphs 20 minutes before the paper is due. "

"Yet on the level of thinking of our Silicon Valley overlords, aspects of my cognitive abilities that are absolutely central to my educational success are taken to have literally no value at all. In educational research, perhaps the greatest danger lies in thinking "that which I cannot measure is not real." The disruption fetishists have amplified this danger, now evincing the attitude "teaching that cannot be said to lead to the immediate acquisition of rote, mechanical skills has no value." But absolutely every aspect of my educational journey - as a student, as a teacher, and as a researcher - demonstrates the folly of this approach to learning." True I think but echoed to greater and lesser extend by the educational system which helped create those who run Silicon Valley. h/t Dan Meyer

Interesting guy to talk to etc. at some point. "In the 17th century, scholar-publishers created the first scientific journals, revolutionising the communication and practice of scholarship. Today, we're at the beginning of a second revolution, as academia slowly awakens to the tranformative potential of the Web.   I'm interested in both pushing this revolution forward, and in studying it as it happens. I'm investigating altmetrics: measuring scholarly impact over the social web instead of through traditional citation. I'm also interested in new publishing practices like scholarly tweeting, overlay journals, alternative peer review forms, and open access. These slides give a good idea of what I've been up to lately; my CV links to other recent publications and talks. "

"In 1998, a National Science Foundation report made a remark that begins to hit the mark a little closer: "It is important to understand how individuals assess their own knowledge of these subjects. For many purposes … it is the individual's self-assessment of his or her knowledge that will either encourage or discourage a given behavior." This starts to tear down the wall of judging people based on how "well-informed" or "attentive" they are (terms that permeate these statistics reports) to science, and instead places more significance on an individual's assessment of themselves. To go further, I'd argue that "knowledge" isn't as telltale of a measurement as "experience"."

"Hoffman and I spoke about all this and more in the video below. She gives advice on how to frame and scaffold reflection on the open web, and words of encouragement for those who are contemplating jumping into connected learning."

Not in agreement with the 'taskmaster' element but I have similar concerns about teaching evaluations. "Michele Pellizzari, an economics professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, has a more serious claim: that course evaluations may in fact measure, and thus motivate, the opposite of good teaching. "

Evaluation is such an important part of designing and developing programs for adult learners. This site may be helpful.

Assessment: What are students really learning?

"The Formation by Design Project is a learner-centered and evidence-centered approach to reinventing our institutions around whole person development and doing so in ways that are thoroughly responsive to the emerging learning ecosystem that characterizes this moment in history-the increasingly data-rich environment that, while enabling personalization and customization of learning, at the same time risks de-centering and dis-empowering learners. The Project engages internal and external stakeholders in a process of defining, designing, and measuring formation of the individual within the context of higher education." h/t Shelly Fowler

The purpose of this study was to examine instructor performance, which might reflect the quality of instruction in regards to online class size. Instructor performance was measured through peer reviews of online faculty in the areas of: fostering critical thinking, providing instructive feedback, maintaining high expectations, establishing relationships, and exemplifying instructor expertise. Class size was defined as the number of students still enrolled at the end of the course

"The best performing teacher in the whole system was a woman named Zenaida Tan. Up until that report, she was completely unheralded. The skills she possessed were invisible. Meanwhile, less important traits were measured on her evaluations (three times she was late to pick up students from recess). In part, Lemov is talking about the skill of herding cats. The master of cat herding senses when attention is about to wander, knows how fast to move a diverse group, senses the rhythm between lecturing and class participation, varies the emotional tone. This is a performance skill that surely is relevant beyond education. This raises an important point. As the economy changes, the skills required to thrive in it change, too, and it takes a while before these new skills are defined and acknowledged. For example, in today's loosely networked world, people with social courage have amazing value. Everyone goes to conferences and meets people, but some people invite six people to lunch afterward and follow up with four carefully tended friendships forevermore. Then they spend their lives connecting people across networks. People with social courage are extroverted in issuing invitations but introverted in conversation - willing to listen 70 percent of the time"

"Once you present OER to faculty, there's a real affinity and alignment of OER with faculty values. Jeff was surprised more about the potential of OER than he had thought going in. Unlike other technology-based subjects of BSRG studies, there is almost no suspicion of OER. Everything else BSRG has measured has had strong minority views from faculty against the topic (online learning in particular), with incredible resentment detected. This resistance or resentment is just not there with OER. It is interesting for OER, with no organized marketing plan per se, to have no natural barriers from faculty perceptions"

THIS is how we ought to be thinking about assessment!

"Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest is an important and straight to the point book that reminds us that, ultimately, we're up against intimidating asymmetries of power and knowledge. Stronger actors -whether they are corporations, governmental bodies or influential people- have better tools at their disposal if they want to hide something. What we have is obfuscation. It might require time, money, efforts, attention but it gives us some leverage as well as some measures of resistance and dignity. "

"In part, grading practices in higher education have been driven by educational goals such as providing feedback to students, motivating students, comparing students, and measuring learning. However, much of the research literature on grading reviewed above suggests that these goals are often not being achieved with our current grading practices. Additionally, the expectations, time, and stress associated with grading may be distracting instructors from integrating other pedagogical practices that could create a more positive and effective classroom environment for learning."

""In terms of trying to assess authentic student learning," he says, "it's the most ambitious effort ever.""