​Alternative assessments like Exhibitions, Presentations of Learning and projects show what the student learned and what they care about. Do not discount real world work for test grades. If a student makes or does or produces something great let their grade reflect that even is the testing was not. Remember testing is not real, tests are tools to measure something real. 

Write your own Tests.
Write your own Worksheets.
Always reinvent the wheel.
​
The students will know if you took a quiz, test, assignment out of a book or from a colleague because it could never match up to what the class was doing. If the assignment is unimportant enough to write it yourself why should the students take it seriously?

You are modeling the behavior you want your students to have. Don't get angry or punish them for being like you. 

Project Based Learning needs progressive assessment. 
Progressive assessment needs to be individualized for the students, not the teacher. 

​Since leaving the classroom or year and a half ago, I’ve been traveling on around the world talking about Project Based Learning. I’ve done workshops,  shared the integrated Project Based Learning work my students made and I worked with individual teachers doing projects with them and for them in some cases. I worked with private schools, independent schools, charter schools, public school and I started to figure out the real issue with school improvement. 

It’s not that the schools need Project Based Learning or "Fill in the Blank" Based Learning because those are tools to engage students, and we all know that tools are only as good as the person using them. The real change that is needed is the relationship between teachers and their students and the students and their work. Progressive education what is missing. The idea that the teachers are not the center of learning the students are. 

I’ve written this simple list to point out the changes that we need to make in the Twenty-first century. We all know what the twentieth century’s schools were like and that was fine then when we were cool with not educating everyone. Minorities, women, the poor and left-handed people were left out. Times have changed, and we need to be progressive the teachers are no longer the center of the classroom, and showing what you understand is more important than a grade on a test.

Here is what we need in a progressive classroom and what you need to keep out? You might have some of your own, and that’s great too. You might disagree with me on some points, and that’s fine also. 

In a Progressive Classroom, the teacher doesn’t merely disseminate information. The teacher watches and supports their students to discover all that they need and all that they can do already.

This is a short article because less is more and simple structures beget complex ideas and complex structures beget simple ideas. If you tell your students to design a staircase and let them go you will get lots of designs of fantastical staircases; they might not be possible to build; however, you could find solutions to the design problems. If you hand a blueprint to every student, you will get the same staircase from everyone. Telling them they have to follow your instructions, or they will get a bad grade, that being different is wrong and that only the teacher knows what is correct and we know that is not true.

The following is a list of does and don’t to ponder. It wouldn’t be very progressive of me to say these are hard and fast rules. The fact is I discovered what not to do from my education and mistakes I made as a teacher for 28 years. Please read and think about what kind of teacher you would like to have as an adult.

Do not grade rough drafts. Doing so takes the safety of making mistakes away from the students. Talk to the students and decide together what would make their work better.

If a student is not engaged talk to them and develop an activity or assignment that they would draw them into the class and still cover the same topics or content. It is fair to have all students participating everyone doesn’t need to be doing the same thing all the time. They will be in the corporate world soon enough.

Group grading is never ok; you need to look at the individuals, listens to them explain what they did and what they feel they have learned.

Test and quizzes are fine if you use them as a diagnostic to see if the students are getting what you are serving. If a student fails a test, the teacher needs to look inward do not blame the student. Find another way to reach them.

Everything needs to be connected. Videos, one-day lessons used to babysit the students are counterproductive. If you know you are going to be out and you need to come up with something for the students to do because you're not there leading them, your class is teacher lead not students driven. Give assignments and projects that the students can and will do on their own.

The student finds what is important to them about the curriculum or the subject of study. The teacher should: comment, pose questions and support the student's inquiry.  

Lecturing about:
Social Justice
Racism
Privilege
Immigration
Nutrition
Drugs
Identity
Global Warming
Anything scary
Anything over covered in the media
should not be done by an adult, not a teacher or the guest lecture.
Instead, have the students:
Investigate
Develop their own questions
Find their own answers
Explain what they have learned
If preaching worked, the world would have been a better place long ago. 

Do not use technology instead of communicating with your students. Teaching is Person to Person. The services on the internet do not convey nuance. Person to PC to Person is not and never will be good enough.  

Do not give complicated instructions
Simple Structures = Complex Ideas
Complex Structures = Simple Ideas

Let the students develop their own questions, theses, and hypotheses
and give them a little help when answering.

Deadlines need to be authentic, not arbitrary. It is still authentic to say to your class, "I am grading papers this weekend. You need to hand them in so I can have a life." That is real, honest and progressive.

Alternative assessments like Exhibitions, Presentations of Learning and projects show what the student learned and what they care about. Do not discount real world work for test grades. If a student makes or does or produces something great let their grade reflect that even is the testing was not. Remember testing is not real, it is a tool to measure something real. 

Write your own Tests.
Write your own Worksheets.
Always reinvent the wheel.
The students will know if you took a quiz, test, assignment out of a book or from a colleague because it could never match up to what the class was doing. If the assignment is unimportant enough to write it yourself why should the students take it seriously?

You are modeling the behavior you want your students to have. Don't get angry or punish them for being like you. 

Project Based Learning needs progressive assessment. 
Progressive assessment needs to be individualized for the students, not the teacher. 

At the end of the twentieth century, I worked with a wonderful teacher everyone loved her. She was famous in our little school. I sat in her class to see what was her secret. The students were always busy overwhelmed with work, tons of assignments and due dates. If they stopped working, they inevitably would fail the class. I thought at the time, "what a drag I would hate that." This was 1997, and I was correct. I have come to label this kind of teaching, "Kitchen Sink Teaching." The teacher says, "Well that is life, you have to work" and "My class is rigors." Well,  life doesn't have to be on the edge of drowning, and I would say that the skills they were learning were not critical thinking more of a high stakes Simon Says. 

Be progressive, do something real, set up the class to have the student know what it is like to be a mathematician by doing real work. Show the students what it is like to be a historian by discovering something interesting to them and writing some history. We do not need to show students in the Twenty-first Century how dated our punitive education was. 

Have fun, and everyone will learn. 

​In 2000, when High Tech High started, there was an idea floated that we should do Competence Grading. Competence Grading entails the measurement of  "soft skills" such as collaboration, analysis, and problem-solving. We were supposed to walk around with PDA's (Personal Digital Assistant) and evaluate the students as they worked on projects together. 

My colleagues and I rebelled and said, "That is preposterous, we will not have time to do this constant grading." We continued with Project Based Learning, and some teachers were successful, and some were not. 
I thought I was successful doing Project Based Learning working with other teachers in an integrated subject approach for 17 years. For the most part, my teaching partners would follow my lead, especially in regards to progressive practices. Letting the students have voice and choice and evaluating them on growth and what they made or did rather than traditional quizzes and tests.

From time to time,  I did run into problems with teaching partners that did not have this progressive mindset. They would tell me, "The students can't start working on projects until  they all pass a quiz on the book I am making them read." There were so many things wrong with this traditional attitude (If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding!) ; I tried to explain to my partner that they could backfill with texts and quizzes after the students started their projects.  That way any quiz or text would have a context and the students would find the books and quizzes added to their understanding. Many teachers would not change, that was they were educated, that was the way they would teach.  It wasn't long before such teachers found that High Tech High was not the place for them. 

Now that Competence Grading is making a comeback, I get how and where it should be used. If a teacher is a traditional lecturer, quiz on Wednesday, test on Friday, kind of teacher, Competency Grading can be used to bring this teacher to a new understanding of how to evaluate the students on growth, collaborative effort, revision, and perseverance. Competence Grading can be used to increase student understanding and increase their abilities through practice instead of fill in the blank, guess what answer is right, or memorization. If a teacher doesn't have the will or skill set to do projects, Competency Grading is one step on the road toward being a progressive teacher. 

I did not need Competency Grading because I teach as my graduate school professors taught me.  Those professors made suggestions, helped me evaluate and analyze my work.  They helped me discover what would help improve my work after I left school. It was perfect. Art school was pretty great. 

You have to be progressive to teach PBL fairly and effectively. If you can't let go of your past practice and your own education, use Competence Grading to open up your eyes to what is really important, teaching your students to think and do great work when you are not there anymore. 

 Think about what made these experiences important and what the teachers did that caused you to learn. There was a good chance they were asking you to improve your work, think about what you could do next, even about how to do it better. 

Your effective teachers were likely doing Competence Grading  Use Competence Grading to open up your eyes to what is essential, teaching your students how to think and do great work even when you are not there anymore.