Podcast239: 21st Century Learning: Embedding New Skills and Assessments by Dr. Richard Hersh (COSN 2008 Keynote)

This podcast features a recording of Dr. Richard Hersh’s comments on March 10, 2008, at the COSN Conference in Washington D.C. in the opening keynote panel discussion. Dr. Hersh currently serves as the Co-Director of the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) the College and Work Readiness Assessment (CWRA.) He is focused on encouraging educators (as well as the legislators who write policy which dictates many of the roles and tasks of the 21st century U.S. classroom) to embrace assessments which move far beyond the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, at the knowledge and comprehension level, and instead assess critical thinking skills. This is a challenging task, but an extremely important one. Of all the presenters I heard at COSN 2008 this year, Dr. Hersh stood out as the most thought provoking and challenging speaker. This recording also includes some commentary from Dr. Chris Dede of Harvard University, who was also on the opening keynote panel. The description of this session in the conference program was: There is a growing awareness that students need new skills to succeed in our global economy. In addition to traditional core subjects, students need critical thinking, creativity and collaboration skills. Yet how do we embed these new skills in student’s education? How can these new skills be assessed? What role might technology play to enable and support this new learning environment? Hear from a leading large scale global assessment expert and U.S. educational researcher and practitioner as they explore this critical issue.

Show Notes:

1. The College And Work Readiness Assessment (CWRA)
2. Teaching To A Test Worth Teaching To In College And High School (PDF) by Richard H. Hersh
3. Assessing Cricital Thinking, Analytical Reasoning, Problem-Solving And Writing In High School (PDF) by Richard H. Hersh
4. The Consortium for School Networking Conference (COSN)

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[tags]education,learning,assessment,testing,highstakes,accountability,test,tests,thinking,criticalthinking,richardhersh,cosn,cosn08,cosn2008[/tags]