Written by This week, I had the chance to work with the grade 7 French teacher, helping her get her classes set up on Duolingo, a web-based program that allows students to work through language lessons at their own pace. The teacher dashboard allows you to create classes, and students join the class with a six-digit code. The teacher can then track students’ work through the lessons, set certain lessons for homework, or challenge students to gain a certain amount of “xp” to “level up”, much like in a video game. Duolingo also has a mobile app, and is available in many languages, making it a neat way for anyone to start to learn a language on the go.
As our school begins to focus on one element of our new strategic plan, which is to “support, know and inspire all students”, a program such as this one can be an opportunity to offer instruction at the students’ area of need. Students who enter grade 7 with minimal French experience can work at the basic level to catch up with their peers, and students who have come to us from a French immersion or extended French program can challenge themselves beyond what the teacher might be able to do within a regular classroom. Enrichment and support, all within a fun package that will engage students and will allow the teacher to spend additional one-on-one time with students: what more can you ask for in a blended learning environment? (Side note: I have not spent enough time with Duolingo to evaluate its effectiveness as a learning program, and its focus on translation as a learning tool has me slightly wary, but the level of engagement of students in the activities it offers seems to point to it as a valuable addition to a language program. But I digress.)
Once we got students all set up with their accounts, they had the option of starting from the basics, or completing a placement test to possibly “level out” of certain basic lessons. Because most of these students have been learning French for several years already, we asked them to begin with the placement test.
Sensing the instant anxiety that arose in the room upon the mention of the word “test”, we quickly assured students that the point of this test was not to evaluate them in any negative way, but to ensure that they would be working at lessons that are at the right level for them. We thought that would be enough. But, boy, were we wrong!
Of course, taking a language test on a computer is going to have its drawbacks. Although a student might know how to say “goodbye” in French, if they make a spelling error on a simple question like this, it is marked wrong. No big deal, right? It’s just a placement test. It would simply mean that you’d have to review the lesson on this topic again, which is only going to help you with accuracy in the long run, right? However, we had no idea how emotionally fraught this experience of being marked “wrong” would be for students!
Upon students beginning the placement test, we immediately began to hear a chorus of cries of “What? I knew that!” and “It marked it wrong but I just forgot one letter/accent/word” etc. We heard students trying to get help from their peers and us, crying out, “how do you say [x] in French??” The desperation in their voices and on their faces was obvious. At the end of the test, almost every student received this message from the program: “You didn’t test out of any skills.” And at this point, the students were beside themselves.
We tried to reassure them. It was no use. This experience made it abundantly clear that these 7th grade students have become so entirely convinced that the results of a test defines who they are and what they are worth. How has it come to this?
How has our education system so skewered what students understand assessments such as this one to be? How might we begin to shift that notion through our practice?
Although I’m not sure it would have helped at this point, a comparison to video games might be in order. I used to be a bit of a gamer myself. My university years, believe it or not, were shaped in part by a somewhat unhealthy addition to the MMORPG World of Warcraft.
In World of Warcraft, a player would never dream of attempting a Level 60 quest with a character who was only at level 20. She simply would not have the skills and background necessary to be successful. That is certainly not to say that failure is frowned upon in the game, however. Any player, in order to level up, will attempt quests and challenges that are perhaps a little bit beyond his skill level, and he will be handsomely rewarded with additional XP as a token of that challenge. Every time his character dies in the course of one of these challenges, he will modify his strategy: maybe he’ll try a different approach, maybe he’ll attempt the challenge with a friend who can support the quest, or perhaps he’ll get a bit more XP at a lower level in order to ensure greater success moving forward.
Failure (or death), in a video game, is viewed as a learning opportunity – a chance to start over, to try again with different strategy. In a placement test, of all things, this should be even more so.
A key element of design thinking process is to “fail early and fail often”. How might we embrace this idea of failure as a learning tool rather than as the end of the road? How might we adapt our practice to make regular failure par for the course?
How might we encourage students to embrace the mindset that failure is truly a “first attempt in learning”? And do our teaching and assessment practices actually reflect this?
Excellent re-cap of a very interesting lesson. My experience watching my Grade 9 classes begin Duolingo was similar and fascinating. I saw each student go from excitement over the novelty of using a new technology, to engagement as they tried hard to pass the placement test questions, to frustration when they made errors, to feeling defeated when they didn’t level up, to persevering when they attempted lesson one and finally, to satisfaction when they saw some success. It was like taking the entire learning process and rolling it all into a 45 minute sample. I’m excited to see my students engaged and motivated to keep going!
Thank you so much for your comment, Colleen. Most of this was based on the experience with the grade 7 classes, but your classes certainly followed the trend as well! Like you said, the satisfaction at making progress and seeing success is such an important component of the learning process. If you don’t feel successful, you don’t want to keep trying. Reaching just beyond your comfort level is the key to really seeing progress. I can’t wait to see and hear how this Duolingo experiment continues to go for you!
Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development can shed a lot of light on this conversation…though he comes from a much different era 🙂 The theory is that students should be working in a zone that is just uncomfortable enough to cause cognitive dissonance: a feeling that they aren’t there yet but can see a way to get there.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are on level 3 of a video game – you are there learning and adopting new skills to prepare for level 4. They fail and learn, and fail and learn, and then they don’t, and move to level 4. There, they fail and learn and fail and learn, but it is a new type of failure: they are failing forward by elaborating on a skill set that was under development from previous levels. If they go back to Level 3, they ace it almost every time. This is the assessment – not Level 4. I.e., they are assessed when they are ready…when they are prepared to take the assessment.
In this way, assessments (be they diagnostic, for or as or of learning) can become something that promotes failing forward. One of the ways that we can see our ways through to this is to assess early and often. It is also to be very cognizant of scheduling assessments so that they don’t pile up and coagulate at the usual times (end of term, right before a reporting period). It is also to continue to reinforce this message of assessments as a snap shot, not a judgement.
But lets make this even more complex: let’s look at the types of assessments that we are asking of our students. Let’s get rid of unit tests, and instead break up that same test into smaller projects. I’m thinking about Science. Instead of unit test in Science on Stoichiometry, for example, the student can be put in a position of being a scientist – they undergo a lab, or they write a journal article, or they enter into a debate, or even a conversation with a scientist. Or maybe they design their own lab? Maybe they peer review an article, etc…
In this way, there is more choice in how they are assessed. In this way, there is something meaningful to their assessments, not just a test for test’s sake, but rather do they know it – can they move to Level 4?
These are just some of my thoughts.
Yes, I love this! Especially this: “In this way, there is something meaningful to their assessments, not just a test for test’s sake, but rather do they know it – can they move to Level 4?”
I’m about to start exploring the world of standards-based grading with my grade 11 Comm Tech class. For our “test” tomorrow, I’m going to ask students to perform a series of actions, and I will simply record whether they’ve mastered it, are approaching mastery, or not yet. They aren’t ready to move forward until they’ve mastered these basic skills, because everything that we do moving forward in the course is dependent on being able to easily and naturally perform those skills. I still have not quite figured out how exactly it’s all going to go, but I’m so excited to try it!
Thanks so much for your insightful comment – it gives a ton of “food for thought”! 🙂
Jen
What a great conversation! I love the concept of failing forward and I agree, as Jen originally suggests, that our goal should be to help students embrace that video gaming perspective that keeps them so motivated to master certain skills. I saw it happen with the grade seven classes who were introduced to Duolingo last week. Colleen’s description of the process, starting with excitement, followed by discouragement and moving towards the satisfaction that came with the success they earned after persevering was wonderful to witness. What’s especially exciting is to track their activity and realize that so many of the students who were originally daunted are continuing, spending even some precious weekend time on their pursuit! Brings to mind a colleague’s favourite quote from Robert Browning: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp — or what’s a heaven for?”
Thanks so much, Les, for visiting, reading, and commenting! It means a lot to me. Thanks also for giving me the opportunity to work with your classes – it was a great experience and I always appreciate the chance to be challenged in new ways. When challenges lead to reflection and, hopefully, improved teaching and learning, that’s always a good thing!
Funnily enough, I *almost* included that Browning quote in the post!
Jen