Re: reporting evidence of learning in informal settings

Graham Nuthall (G.Nuthall who-is-at educ.canterbury.ac.nz)
Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:24:48 +1300

Dear Joe, Sara, Sally, and others

I am interested in this discussion about learning in informal settings, but
bothered by the concept of "mastery" that seems to be structuring some of
the discussion. It seems to be a concept that is primarily related to some
kind of formal test that determines whether a person has "got it" or "not
got it".

After many years of talking with (interviewing) children about what they
have learned, recollect about, understand, think about, their classroom
experiences and the curriculum embedded in those experiences, I have no
idea what "mastery" might mean. In my experience, children's beliefs and
understandings are changed by their classroom experiences in multiple ways.

As Joe has said, all this has a lot to do with the levels of interest and
the understandings that are involved. The changes that take place in the
children's knowledge and beliefs are continuous, occurring before, through,
and after the specific educational experience we are interested in. Having
taught in a museum context as well as a school context, I don't think there
are any fundamental differences. What changes are the kinds of assessment
activities that we require children to engage in. And we forget that
results on tests have more to do with the test-taking activity than they do
with anything else.

Having used formal tests, I keep coming back to the informal interview as
the best way to "assess" learning. It is an activity in which you can
encourage a child to talk with you about their experiences and
recollections and understandings. Depending on the level of trust, and
sensitivity and willingness to be surprised, and wonder at what you are
told, you can get a sense of (or sample from) the "learning stream" that is
flowing through the child's mind.

I am not sure that I understand more than a part of Jay's discussion of
"externalism", but I resonate to the notion of the interview as a way of
building an external model of the system that is the child's way of
thinking about the objects, ideas, activities, encountered in an
educational experience.

Hope this is helpful. It assumes that we are "permitted" these days to
build sophisticated and logically coherent models of learning experiences,
learning processes, and learning outcomes that do not contain test results
or numbers or passing or failing.

Graham

Graham Nuthall
Professor of Education
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
Phone 64 03 3642255 Fax 64 03 3642418
http://www.educ.canterbury.ac.nz/learning.html