Assessment in American education has long been a tool of tracking and sorting young people, weaponized by systems and by individuals to uphold existing power structures and dominant culture norms. This full-day workshop invites you to explore a framework for learning rooted in liberatory ideals that is designed to fundamentally rethink the purpose and lived experience of assessment for all those involved. Rather than serving as a set of disconnected tasks required by an external force, assessment as revelation sets the learner at the center of an ongoing process of wonder and discovery. Revelatory Assessment offers an opportunity for systems (schools, districts, etc.) to reimagine the essential constructs of learning and assessment. It invites a model where students and facilitators of learning walk alongside each other, connected in the purpose of the journey, not an outcome or end point. Student and facilitator are partnered, fully aware of the experiential process, impact, and growth that propels them forward as learners together. Session participants will reflect on their own lived experience of revelation as well as of assessment. Through exploration of the characteristics of Revelatory Assessment, participants will be invited to consider and plan from a leadership lens, the mindset and technical shifts needed for a school or district to move toward a revelatory approach to learning and assessment.
By the end of the session, we will have:
- explored the Revelatory Framework and its essential components
- witnessed examples of the essential components brought to life through student work and performance at schools across the globe
- examined specific mindset shifts needed in order to move into a revelatory space/model
- strategized the steps for a leader to invite a team/school/district community to journey towards learner liberation through revelatory learning
- designed a specific practice that you might ground an invitation to your colleagues into in order to move away from the “destination model” of assessment
IMPORTANT: Please note that general conference registration is required in order to sign up for a pre-conference workshop and that there is an additional fee to attend. If you already registered for the conference but did not add the workshop on at the time and would now like to, please contact mlarson@neasc.org.
