SPANZ Presentation This presentation is bookended by two whakatauki. - - PDF document

SPANZ Presentation

This presentation is bookended by two whakatauki. The first is: Te manu ka kai i te miro, nōna te ngahere Te manu ka kai i te mātauranga, nōna te ao The bird that partakes of the berry, his is the forest The bird that partakes of knowledge, his is the world I will return to "Qualify for the future world" later but thank you for the opportunity to address you again. In the last 12 months NZQA has been doing a lot of thinking and investigating into the best way that we can implement digital assessment in the work that we

• do. We have been talking with a lot of you and shaping our thinking in response. What I

hope to do today is to build on last year’s address by giving you more specifics around the framework I presented in 2014 and to provide you with an insight into NZQA’s journey and

• ur plans moving forward, because our plans are all about co-creating with you.

Let me back up and start with one student’s experience. Arran is not yet an adult, but he's in charge of his educational ‘learning journey’. His school has fully engaged with the digital opportunity and made a series of significant changes to both its physical learning environment and also the pedagogical approach of its teachers. Each day Arran scrolls through the signposts of his ‘learning journey’, a list of about 14 tasks that are set weekly. He has to submit his responses by their deadline, mostly online through Google Docs - but he decides how much time each one needs, what help he requires from his teachers and when he'll fit them in around other small-group discussions in his other subjects Consulting a ‘Task Master’ type programme that shows his results, he notes that a teacher has returned a task, asking for more evidence from him to demonstrate that he has grasped the appropriate level of learning. “The best part of the new approach was being able to learn to work things out for yourself" he said. "And you get to do more one-on-one stuff with your teachers, and people at the same stage

• f learning that you are".

2020 In order to respond to the way students are learning, NZQA’s journey of transformation to digital assessment is underway and we intend that the changes we make to our assessment will parallel the change in teaching and learning within secondary school classrooms of a similar nature to that of Arran’s school. Digital assessment will be a success only if students have access to a device as and when needed for teaching and learning, that is aligned to the appropriate pedagogical approach taken by teachers in the classroom. Many schools have realised the necessity of turning their

20th century classrooms into 21st century learning spaces with the associated pedagogical change. We know that several, if not many of you are leaders of schools that have made significant progress in using technology as the catalyst for transforming teaching and learning and a significant element in NZQA’s journey is to tap into the expertise and experience in schools and provide a means of sharing this across the sector. 2015 will be the year we really start to make more tangible progress in digital assessment that is more 'visible' to learners and teachers, and it will start to feel more real for them. So I am talking to you today because this digital pedagogy is transformative and system wide. It impacts us all and we need to work in partnership if we are to have a seamless approach. Qualify for the future world As NZQA has continued our Future State work we paused and thought hard about why we do what we do in the areas of assessment in the senior secondary school sector and the quality assurance work we do in the tertiary sector. We believe what we are on about, can be encapsulated by the beacon statement: “Qualify for the future world”. Te manu ka kai i te miro, nōna te ngahere. Te manu ka kai i te mātauranga, nōna te ao. The bird that partakes of the berry, his is the forest. The bird that partakes of knowledge, his is the

• world. Our education system must enable students to be successful in a borderless and digital
• world. Skills developed, and qualifications offered, must reflect the current and future needs
• f employers and society, if New Zealanders and NZ Inc are to be successful.

Your role is critical and NZQA acts in support of that. In my career it has been a privilege to work in two sectors- health and education - where what we do matters – a lot! And to work with committed professionals who care, and are willing to go the extra mile. With much of the work still ahead of us, we are pleased to confirm a partnership with N4L (Network for Learning) who are working with us on our journey of digital transformation. In just over two years, N4L have rolled out their Managed Network with excellent performance, reliability and security. They have also launched, and continue to develop, the portal “Pond” into a tool that is becoming acknowledged as fundamentally important to the embedding of digital practice and online collaboration in New Zealand. Our goals We are working with N4L and classroom teachers to develop and make accessible, through Pond, a range of digital assessment resources that teachers will be able to use in their

• classrooms. Pond is the ideal platform for the easy sharing of resources and allows for the

type of authentic engagement we need to successfully navigate the fast moving pace of educational change.

From Pond, teachers will be able to find the Quality Assured Assessment Materials they need right alongside NZQA Approved materials and other related content. And, teachers can organise this material in a way that makes sense to them. It is hoped that this will reduce the time and effort required of teaching staff to manage resources while, at the same time, contributing to a wider community of practice. I would like to encourage you, your leadership teams and your teachers to participate in Pond by sharing resources in order to build a genuine community of digital practice across the sector. What this means for internal assessment This year we are focussing on the sharing of current digital internal assessment practice. We want to see a thousand flowers blooming on Pond. Why?

• We know that excellent practice already exists which will enable a co-creation

approach (subject associations, schools and teachers) – several Subject Associations have already indicated a willingness to work with us

• Starting with Internal Assessment, will allow learners, community stakeholders, and

educators to become familiar with what is being done in internal digital assessment prior to the introduction of digital external examinations.

• The timeframe will also allow for some evolving technologies to mature, so we can

ensure that the best “fit-for-purpose” and “fit-for-format” technologies are going to be used for external assessment. Moderation We will be expanding our digital moderation processes for External Moderation. In 2014, 48 schools made use of NZQA’s digital moderation processes and were able to provide the moderator with access to the student material online. This enabled effective moderation of standards where the student material was developed digitally without the necessity of a labour intensive paper based moderation submission process. 2015 will be characterised by more efficiency gains in the moderation process through the increased use of

• nline functions as we step into more comprehensive opportunities for online moderation.

External assessment We aim to have some online digital examinations in 2018. Our thinking is around an online examination for 2-3 subjects that lend themselves to comfortably making the transition from paper to online. This year we intend to use the online internal assessment activities to look for synergies where we can leverage out elements that can be used in external assessment - we want to learn from what you are already doing.

As a step toward that we will also be aiming, this year, to offer three or four Level 1 NCEA standards as optional online examinations – one of these will be a revamped eMCAT assessment Pilot that builds on the learnings from last year. Schools and students will be able to choose whether to do the online examination as well as the normal paper based examinations. It is our aim to make either versions count towards NCEA – but many issues need to be worked through first. We will get to test out some methodologies and students get to experience an online version. With each standard we will be testing different aspects of online examinations. But I emphasise the offer will be on an opt in basis. Standard examinations will continue as

• usual. We will start small and test as we go.

Special Assessment Conditions In the 2014 examination round NZQA implemented a very small pilot on the use of a “text to speech” facility for some learners who required a reader and who had a computer to be used as a ‘writer’. This year we are aiming to make the “text to speech” facility available in all External Assessment for students who require it. NZQA is engaging with Microsoft, Apple and Google (Chrome Books) around the provision of the necessary software. Once we have established a suitable solution, we will be providing this information to all schools so that the special assessment tools can be used in your teaching and learning programmes, and in your internal assessment. This will enable students to become familiar with the “text to speech” tools in the classroom before they need to use them in the actual external examinations. We know how important this is from our pilots last year. NZQA App development An further development that we have undertaken is the NCEA App approach – the first App “NCEA Guide” (released last year) has been very popular as an information source directed at parents and employers. The soon to be released App “NCEA Student” is targeted as a planning App for students – it should be released by the end of this week. The App has a standalone database with a powerful search engine which will allow students to easily find NCEA courses and standards they are doing or would like to do; and most importantly to set or track their achievement goals. NZQA will maintain the currency of the database. Students will enter their results and set their goals - reminders are provided for. It will be available in Te Reo.

We know there are other Apps in the market. We encourage students with mobile devices to find the App that suits them. NZQA has endeavoured to respond to student requests in the NCEA Student App for aspects that are not covered by current Apps. Learnings from 2014 You will be aware that in 2014 we undertook a range of activities designed to provide us with knowledge and information about digital assessment and I've already made reference to this. Twenty seven schools took part in the eMCAT which was a practice assessment used in preparation for the MCAT. The eMCAT provided us with some first hand knowledge about digital assessment, most of which reinforced current research and which we can apply across all subject areas. Globally, digital mathematics assessments are problematic due to the difficulties of replicating the paper- based focus of current teaching programmes. The eMCAT showed us that the more time learners had to familiarise themselves with the input process the better they did in the assessment. Using the technology or the digital tools associated with the assessment, should not distract the learner from providing the necessary evidence for assessment. If the notion of digital assessment or even using a computer for the assessment is novel for the learner then they will not be in a position to achieve their true potential. This was reinforced by the SAC pilot - we want students to be familiar with the technology well before examinations. A partnership NZQA is actively working with other sector agencies – notably the MoE, CORE Education, ERO and, as I previously mentioned, N4L in ensuring we have informed support for schools and teachers. We acknowledge that the sector faces a number of challenges

• teacher readiness and degree of comfort
• engaging parental and community support for digital assessment
• listening to students voices and connecting with student capability
• ensuring equity of access and opportunity
• availability of digital devices and access to the internet or school intranet at home

My organisation also faces a number of challenges

• developing assessments fit for online use and maintaining valid assessment
• ensuring “online, anywhere, anytime” exams are consistently delivered
• vercoming issues with student access to computers/devices, and the compatibility of

these (i.e. agnostic devices and platforms)

• managing the cost of transforming assessment in an online environment
• ensuring access is secure and reliable, and authentication/identity is addressed

What is critical to the success of our vision is the partnership we envisage with schools and

• teachers. We know that many schools and teachers are well advanced in terms of their

thinking about the use of technology in the classroom. In assessment we want to form a partnership with you to both develop quality assessment activities and to showcase best practice. Through the use of Pond and the expertise of teachers we hope to foster a community of practice that will be valuable to schools and teachers in their teaching, learning and assessment programmes. As school leaders we ask that if you have staff who are using technology in innovative and engaging ways then we want to hear from you. At stages we will also need schools and teachers to test out some of our ideas and we hope that you will put your hand up for that. We are immensely grateful to the 27 schools that volunteered to take part in the eMCAT in 2014, and to those schools who piloted text to speech for SAC candidates last year. To conclude We have been very active investigating a wide range of methods, practices, ideas and systems that have been used in both online and digital assessment systems. We have formulated our broad plan based on feedback and what we think is the best way forward for New Zealand and we will be implementing new systems in line with this timeline. And of course we will need to adapt our planning to changing circumstances. What this timeline does not show is the significant amount of piloting and testing that will be undertaken over the next 2 years as part of our investigations and development work. We will be reporting our progress through a range of methods, not least our own Website based Innovation Pages and engaging with stakeholders. We are planning a series of roadshows for the second term of this year and will respond to requests from schools and cluster groups to visit, talk and share the planning. We will of course be sending out informal and formal notifications. Today I am (merely) sharing our thinking with you as we move through this process it will also be looking at the nature of assessment with the aim of creating more authentic, meaningful and engaging assessments that are fit for purpose in the 3rd decade of the 21st century. Assessment review Digital assessment provides the opportunity to validly assess higher order skills such as creativity, critical thinking and evaluation that can be problematic in a paper based

• environment. This fits in with the vision of the New Zealand Curriculum and its vision for
• ur learners.

It also provides an opportunity to assess a wider range of skills and competencies in a much more authentic way. Digital assessment enables assessment to be contextualised and more

authentic which makes it more engaging for the learner, which in turn can contribute to their motivation and success. And, as the Digital Assessment becomes more fit-for-purpose and appropriate to the learning it will move towards contributing, in a ‘just in time’ fashion to "assessment as learning". Assessment as learning This matches the digital transformation (dare I say disruption) that facilitates personalised learning in a way that is geared to the individual learning needs of students. Alvin Toffler wrote this in 1970 in his book Future Shock and he was presenting the notion that the future would be characterised by significant change and in the world today change has become a constant. But Toffler was also presenting us with a challenge. We, as educational leaders, must be prepared to change ourselves so that we can be effective contributors to the education of our 21st century learners. The world as we know it has changed, and the role of technology in our lives continues to evolve at an exponential rate –. Teaching, learning and assessment are taking place in an increasingly global and digital environment. At NZQA we have been challenging ourselves to unlearn some of our previous pre- conceptions, policies and practices about assessment which were designed for a paper based context; and relearn them for a digital context. Michael Fullan's notion of new pedagogies aligns itself with where we see assessment in the future as well – the opportunity to create new knowledge and to make meaning of it. The creation of new knowledge underpins the Key competencies as described in the NZ Curriculum and if we can align teaching learning and assessment with this notion then I believe we will have a truly 21st century education system that will have genuine meaning for

• ur learners.

That is the challenge of digital transformation. My final whakatauki completes the bookend - it's about the power of working together. Nōu te rourou Nōku te rourou Ka ora ai te iwi With your food basket and my food basket the people will prosper Thank you.