Assessing Knowledge Building

Assessment Strategies

Knowledge Building is highly resistant to pencil and paper testing. This is because during Knowledge Building, knowledge and ideas are continually be created and improved whereas in standard classroom practices knowledge is often static and flows from teacher (or textbook) to the student. In a Knowledge Building community knowledge is never static and often develops well beyond what a teacher could communicate and test. And this is exactly what should happen in a Knowledge Building community when it is functioning well.

Two classroom-tested methods outlined below for evaluation incorporate use two different modes of expression: oral and written. Other suggestions for evaluation can be found in the Resources page.

The two methods below incorporate a key feature as Knowledge Builders: If students learn together as a community then students should be evaluated together. Assessment is created by the students who choose where their learning gains were the strongest. Both methods support individual accountability while using groups efforts for their assessment.

1. Knowledge Circles

In a Knowledge Circle, all students within their Knowledge Building community are given a voice. During this oral evaluation, students use their voice to express their knowledge, ideas, and where knowledge and ideas were improved after their Knowledge Building experience.

First, listen to these students talk passionately about their engagement during their Knowledge Circle and how the circle operates. Watch the video before reading further. Then I will give some modifications on how to further facilitate Knowledge Circle evaluation.

What to Do

Imagine a Knowledge Building community of six students (perhaps five or seven) at the end of their Knowledge Building experience. To prepare for a Knowledge Circle evaluation, students discuss in their community where their Knowledge Building was most effective in terms of knowledge gained, ideas worked with and possible solutions discovered. Once consensus is reached students then review their questions, knowledge and ideas posted. They are given que-cards to write down their major talking points from their research.

To begin the Knowledge Circle presentation each student is given a token (a coin, paper clip etc.) that represents 1 minute of talking time. So if you want each student to have up to 3 minutes of talking time (maybe 2 minutes or 4 minutes - the teacher can decide here) they each get 3 tokens.

When the first student in the community starts the conversation, he/she tosses their first token into the centre of the circle and begins to talk for up to 1 minute. A second student tosses their token into the centre and builds on the conversation of the previous person or takes the conversation in a different direction for up to 1 minute. A third student tosses in their token and talks for 1 minute and so on. The goal here is for each student to have used up their 3 tokens during the conversation. This ensures individual accountability during the evaluation.

In this scenario the evaluation for one community takes around 20 minutes. To make it a truly community event, the remainder of the class not part of the Knowledge Circle can act as a respectful audience listen and watching from the sidelines until it is their turn to present.

Below is a small sample video of a Knowledge Circle in action using the steps outlined above. Notice how the students know their material well enough as to not use their notes. This is a high end goal for a Knowledge Circle evaluation.

2. E-portfolios

An E-portfolio for Knowledge Building brings together the best work that a community created. It acts as a review of the best 'literature' that students created - as judged by them - using the four actions for Knowledge Builders. Below is a small sample of what the literature review might look like followed by a brief explanation.

What to Do

Students in the community decide where their best knowledge and idea-making took place in their conversations. Have them pick four or five sets of notes within Knowledge Forum that they consider their best Knowledge Building work. In the above sample for example, one set of those notes involved the 'Expansion of the Universe'.

Each student reviews those notes and then produces a summary of the learning by using their own understanding along with the understanding of others. Note the references used in the above sample to make the cohesive summary. The teacher encouraged the students use the names of their community members thereby giving them credit for their contributions

The students repeat this process for the remaining sets of notes. The entire review note is completed within Knowledge Forum. This is done by simply opening up a new note and constructing their review for each of the four or fives sets of notes. A rubric used used to evaluate the literature review and can be found here (coming shortly)