The MyWays Success Framework: Student Competencies for Learning, Work, and Life

The MyWays Success FrameworkStudent Competencies for Learning, Work, and Life

developed by Dave Lash & Dr. Grace Belfiorewith Next Generation Learning Challenges

The MyWays Project draws on research across the broad “student success” landscape to provide a composite framework applicable to all students regardless of academic aptitude or socioeconomic circumstance, including those students who must overcome the extraordinary challenges of

intergenerational poverty and racial discrimination. The Success Framework lies at the center of the MyWays Project.

April 2017

2Putting MyWays to Work

The MyWays Project offers research, tools, and reports that provide a framework to help educators redesign the goals and central learning paradigm of their schools.

Brooklyn LAB Charter School, Oct 2015


MyWays is designed to help NGLC grantees and other school designers answer four big questions:

WHY the urgency to change? What are the real-world conditions that our students will need to address? (Analysis and envisioning)

How well are we defining and articulating what success looks like for students attending our school? (Curriculum or learning goals)

How well does our design for learning and the organization of our school directly support students' attainment of that richer, deeper definition of success? (Instruction and school organization)

How do we gauge students' progress in developing those competencies? And: How can we measure and articulate our school’s overall performance, beyond proficiency in ELA and math? (Assessment and evaluation)


This beta-version PowerPoint deck provides a fairly concise description of the MyWays tools and their use, to help educators answer questions 2-4. More detailed information and tools relating to question 1 will be forthcoming throughout the Spring of 2017 at http://myways.nextgenlearning.org and in the main report of the MyWays Project.

http://myways.nextgenlearning.org/

5Putting MyWays to Work / Q.2 – Redefining Success

The MyWays tools for Question 2:

How well are we defining and articulating what success looks like for students attending our school? (Curriculum)



MyWays offers exercises and other tools to help school design and leadership teams put a practical, research-based lens on their models across all three of these questions. (Tools for Question 1 are forthcoming.)

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One issue we researched in depth is the relationship between a person’s internal behaviors and dispositions, their learning and skill development, and their confidence and effectiveness operating in the real world —operating in the real world being essential to success in college, career, and life.

The research suggests that competenceis the union of capability and agency as we have defined those terms here. Additionally, the behaviors, skills, and dispositions that comprise agency (as well as capability)“are local” in the sense that an individual might be high-agency in one area, say math, but low-agency in English, social skills, or developing a personal roadmap to a new goal. Or vice versa.

Accordingly, a key takeaway from the research is the importance of developing agency within specific competencies, rather than as a separate ability.

Redefining Success – The Concepts

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Organized in four domains, MyWays serves as a rosetta stone to translate research from across the broad, multi-disciplinary student success landscape to understand what is important for students to learn.


The 20 MyWays Competencies

The MyWays model provides school designers, teachers,

parents, and students with a set of 20 student competencies needed for success in college,

career, and life.

8Redefining Success – The Concepts


Drilling deeper. This table provides short definitions for each of the competencies. The MyWays Success Framework report provides deeper discussion of the research for the competencies.


Here’s how MyWays aligns with a few selected models from the student success landscape.

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Knowledge Skills

Work Study Practices

Work Study Practices

Each school or jurisdiction has its own language and constructs. MyWays is designed to provide a common frame through which reformers can connect their work to research and practice elsewhere.

This graphic shows how the state of New Hampshire is mapping MyWays with its ownframework of Work StudyPractices.


Another feature of MyWays is its emphasis on interoperability with other frameworks.

Educators can use MyWays to Map Students’ Current (black) and Future (red) Competencies

A way to visually depict any student’s personalized learning plan: a graphical IEP


13Exercise 1a IntroductionFine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success

This Exercise packet is designed to help you begin working with MyWays by addressing the first big question, which addresses what is important for students to learn:

How well are we defining and articulating what success looks like for our students?

The purpose of Exercise 1a is to help your team compare your current definition of student success (your goals for your students) with the MyWays categories of student success – to help you think about whether you may be overlooking some important kinds of competencies, or even perhaps still emphasizing some that are no longer important for your students’ success.

Exercise 1a:Defining and Mapping Your Definition of Student Success

14Exercise 1b IntroductionFine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success

Exercise 1b:Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success

Before delving into the two exercises presented in this section, we recommend that your design team members read the MyWays Model Overview listed on the last page of this deck. Discuss it as a group. Seek agreement on what information will be useful to collect on the worksheet and whole-student competency plots.

After your team has updated your curriculum goals in Exercise 1a, Exercise 1b helps your teachers to use the MyWays Competency Plotting Tool to graphically plot each indi-vidual student’s current strengths, needs, and goals across your full set of competencies. This is a powerful tool for guiding the development of a personal learning plan for each student.

15Exercise 1a. Defining and Mapping Your Definition of Student Success

Exercise 1a.Like all MyWays tools, this Competency Correlation Tool is flexible and adaptable to many purposes. Customize the tool and exercise to fit your needs!

Here’s Exercise 1a:

Download the Competency Correlation Tool from the Toolbox.

Working individually, compare your school’s model of student success against the MyWays competencies. (Work on hard copy, digitally using the Excel template, or load the template into a Google doc for collaborative editing.)

Compare worksheets and discuss. Where is your model strongest? What competencies do you feel should be strengthened or added? Come up with a joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hhlvvc92egygfbg/AAAZEP3g_03zMwEEyQXqO3xEa/Worksheet%20Tool.How%20we%20define%20success%20for%20students.xlsx?dl=0

16Exercise 1b. Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success

“Force visual comparison,” stresses Edward Tufte, the guru of information visualization. To that end, MyWays provides two simple whole-student competency plot tools: a detailed plot of all 20 competencies (upper right) and a simpler domain plot that uses one combined score for the five competencies in each domain (lower right).

The tools are built in Excel, are easy to use, and easy to customize. Most importantly, they can be used to compare almost any two conditions: contrasting student profiles, the same student at two points in time, program profiles at schools A and B, and so forth.

In Exercise 1b, you will use the MyWays Competency Detail Plotting Tool to generate a competency plot of an individual student’s current strengths, needs, and goals across the full set of MyWays competencies.

Next, we demonstrate how this is done.


The case of Tia*A 14-year-old living in Boston, here’s how Tia (black line) might be compared to an academically “on-track” student (red line) using the domain-level plotting tool. Any scale can be used with the tool; in this case, the student in red is Performing (‘3’) in the Content Knowledge and Habits of Success domains with lower scores in Creative Know How and Wayfinding Abilities. Tia’s low-income background and moderate dyslexia have contributed to her lower Content Knowledge score, but she is a determined child with several strengths in other domains that would typically go unnoticed, or at least, undeveloped in traditional schools.

On the next page, we’ll look deeper at the individual competencies in each domain using the more detailed plotting tool.

First though, note the screenshot of the Excel file (right). The plot is generated automatically by changes in the ‘Enter Data’ table. Easy-to-follow instructions are provided right on the same page. Plots can be customized through simple editing of the spreadsheet.

* Tia is a fictionalized composite of two real students in the Boston area.


In this second plot, we have used a more detailed version of the Excel tool to show Tia’s current level for all 20 MyWays competencies (black). That profile shows several peaks which figured significantlyin developing the goals and individual education plan represented by the purple line.

In addition to her Individualized Education Program focused solely on her dyslexia, Tia’s teachers and parents have helped Tia establish some

learning activities and goals (purple line) that will cultivate her strengths and interests while exploring potential career pathways.

Examples:• Providing learning experiences in

and out of school to maximize her strong Social Skills, Communication ability, and Practical Life Skills;

• Declaring an “academic major” around her two great loves—young children and animals—using two Content Knowledge platforms: Science, Social Studies, Arts, Languages and Career-Related Technical Skills;

• Translating the determination and hard work Tia has shown in overcoming her disability and her family’s financial struggles, along with Social Skills and self-knowledge beyond her years, into more Positive Mindsets, Academic Behaviors, and Learning Strategies.


Exercise 1b.Read and discuss the MyWays Model Overview.

Download the Competency Detailed Plotting Tool from the Toolbox. Read the instructions within the spreadsheet.

Customize the exercise to fit your current needs. Consider plotting a student’s current status and future goals, or modify the exercise to use the tool for an assessment of your learning program or goals.

Select one of the scales provided within the instructions, or use another scale of your own creation.

For purposes of this exercise, enter values for each competency (left) based on actual data or your informed experience. Generate plot(s).

Discuss the plots and new insights. Come up with a joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.

Watch for forthcoming MyWays reports and practice briefings for information on learning design and assessment design pertinent to the competencies.

Use this simple Excel tool, provided in the Toolbox, to create a competency-chart graphical expression of an individual student’s current strengths, needs, and goals across the full set of MyWays competencies (or replace them with your own definitions). Or customize this Excel charting tool as you see fit.

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All files associated with these exercises can be found under “Tools” on the MyWays project site.

Related readingThis slide deckThe MyWays Success Framework: Student Competencies for Learning, Work, and Life

ToolsCompetency Correlation Tool (for Exercise 1a)Competency domain Summary Plotting Tool (for Exercise 1b)

Competency Detailed Plotting Tool (for Exercise 1b)

Resources for Exercises 1a & 1bFine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success




Putting MyWays to Work / Q.3 – Learning Design

MyWays offers exercises and other tools to help school design and leadership teams put a practical, research-based lens on their models across all three of these questions.




This mapping represents traditional student experience: lots of transmission-based instruction in the classroom, some labs and research projects focused on higher-order thinking skills, a smattering of extracurricular activities, and perhaps some simple minimum wage work with little training.

MyWays Learning Design – The Concepts 22

To develop broader and deeper competencies attuned to today’s real-world challenges, we need to focus on the situated learning zone where higher-order thinking skills are interwoven with real-world settings that are either bounded or complex (unbounded).

MyWays Learning Design – The Concepts 23

Exercise 2a – the first of the three exercises for Question 2 – addresses whole game learning. Combining situated learning with other learning science concepts, David Perkins at Harvard’s Project Zero developed seven principles for maintaining the essence of the authentic activity while creating conditions that support novice advancement. For more on whole game learning, read the Whole Game Learning overview. We also recommend Perkins’ very readable book, Making Learning Whole. The following slide maps selected Next Gen models to whole game learning.

The slide after thatdescribes “junior versions,”Perkins’ term for learning experiences that follow the seven principles.

Exercises 2a, b, and c explore how whole game learning and junior versions can be used to advance the MyWays competencies.

MyWays Learning Design – The Concepts 24These seven principles of whole game learning integrate the most important elements of learning and developmental science into a practical guide for developing broader and deeper competencies.

25MyWays Learning Design – The Concepts

Here’s how whole game learning aligns with selected next generation models

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Creating a junior version is like inventing Little League – transforming a real-world “game” into a developmentally appropriate learning experience by:Capturing the basic structural features of the full-scale gameThrowing out what is not as important to start with, while leaving the spirit and shape of the game intactSwapping in simulations, replicas, or scaled-down versions for elements that are not developmentally appropriate or practically possibleSetting and maintaining a reasonable level of challenge for the group and individual learners. This is essential, and requires educators to know:

The learners - their prior knowledge, their interests, how agile they are as learners

Stages of developmental readiness - “what happens to knowledge, understanding, and self-awareness as children advance from kindergarten through high school and beyond.”

Including all seven of the principles of whole game learningPrototyping and tuning to align the experience with student capabilities

“The first time around,” says Perkins, “involves at least as much learning for you as it does for the learners, because you are almost always wrong in some ways… Only over two or three cycles of working with real learners in real situations can we expect to home in on truly well-calibrated junior versions.”

Examples of junior versions Well-designed project-based, problem-based, inquiry-based, and studio-based learning; rich simulations; co-curriculars like theater productions, history fairs, and DECA; service learning, youth development projects, scouting or Odyssey of the Mind programs, and apprenticeships can all be valuable junior versions—if they capture a “whole game” and embed the whole game learning principles.

Creating a Junior Version of a Whole Game

“Put it this way: When I was playing [Little League] I wasn’t playing full-scale, four bases, nine innings. But I was playing a perfectly suitable junior version of the game. A junior version was just right for my size and stamina and the number of kids in the neighborhood.

But when I was studying those shardsof math and history, I wasn’t playinga junior version of anything.

It was kind of like batting practice without knowing the whole game.

Why would anyone want to do that?”

David Perkins

MyWays Learning Design – The Concepts

Exercise 2a:How well do your projects reflect the principles of whole game learning?

These exercises are designed to help you use MyWays and whole game learning to address the second big question:

How well does our design for learning and the organization of our school directly support students' attainment of that richer, deeper definition of success?

Review the Whole Game Learning overview before tackling the exercises.

27Exercises 2a, b, and c – Introduction Learning Design as Rich as Your Definition of Student Success

Exercise 2b:How well do your projects harness the benefits of junior versions?

Exercise 2c:How well do your projects map to the MyWays competencies?

Demonstrating whole game learningwith The Mayan Community ProjectWe demonstrate whole game learning and Exercises 2a, b, and c using an experiential learning project developed at a High Tech High middle school. After researching Mayan culture, students wrote, illustrated, published, and marketed a bilingual alphabet book for younger students. Proceeds helped send impoverished Guatemalan children to school.

The tools for 2a, b, and c appear on the next three slides followed by the filled-in demo worksheets for the Mayan project.

However, we encourageyou to look at the fulldemonstration in the Whole Game Learningoverview where you will also find a fulldescription of the project as well as links to an extensive set of the Mayan project documents.

Use the tools on Slides 32-36 as checklists to aid you in evaluating and improving learning experiences with respect to:

• The seven principles of whole game learning• The characteristics of junior versions• The 20 MyWays competencies

The goal is to equip your learning design team with a reliable process for critiquing emerging curricula and instruction—strengthening the connection to learning and developmental science and encouraging the development of broader and deeper competencies. Even at a quick, conceptual level, these tools can flag key issues and “help change the conversation” within your team with respect to transforming teaching and learning.

In completing the exercises, pick one of these learning design tasks:

• Evaluate one of your existing projects (learning experiences) to identify gaps, plan improvements, or adapt the design to change or add competencies;

• Analyze an existing “exemplar” learning experience (like High Tech High’s Mayan project, or other projects you’ve been impressed with) for group workshop, or other development purposes; or

• Develop design parameters for the planning of new projects.

Exercises 2a, b, and c — and a case study demonstration 28

Using the tools in tandem to develop learning designas rich as your definition of student success

http://www.hightechhigh.org/projects/?name=The%20Mayan%20Community%20Project&uid=93e0ce7e7da75c460d22927419607ff2

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Exercise 2a.How well do your projects reflect the principles of whole game learning? Assemble a learning design team to evaluate one of your existing learning experiences (or pick one of the alternative tasks listed on the previous slide). For this exercise, we suggest selecting a multi-faceted experience that runs a semester or more.

Read and discuss the MyWays Whole Game Learning overview, including the Mayan Community Project demonstration.

Download the Whole Game Learning Analysis Tool from the Toolbox.

Working individually, map how your learning experience aligns with each of the seven whole game learning principles. Record the strengths and weaknesses within each principle’s row. (See the Mayan demo for guidance.)

Discuss and combine the individual responses. Come up with a joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.

Exercise 2a — The Whole Game Learning Analysis Tool

30Exercise 2b — The Junior Version Characteristics Tool

Exercise 2b.How well do your projects harness the benefits of junior versions? Continue working with your team from Exercise 2a to perform this second analysis of your project.

Read and discuss the junior versions section of the MyWays Whole Game Learning overview, including the Mayan Community Project demonstration.

Download the Junior Versions Characteristics Tool from the Toolbox.

Working individually, map how well your learning experience design matches up with the characteristics of successful junior versions. Record the strengths and weaknesses within each row of the worksheet. (See the Mayan demo for guidance.)

Discuss and combine the individual responses. Come up with a joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.

Junior Version Characteristics Analysis 31Exercise 2c — The Competency Correlation Tool

Exercise 2c.How well do your projects map to the MyWays Competencies? Continue working with your team from Exercises 2a and b to perform this third and final analysis of your project.

Review the MyWays Whole Game Learning overview, including the Mayan Community Project demonstration.

Download the Competency Correlation Tool from the Toolbox. You used this tool in exercise 1a to assess how your entire school model mapped to the competencies. In the current exercise, you are invited to drill deeper to assess which competencies your selected learning experience project addresses and in what ways and to what depth.

Record learning details, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the project within each row of the worksheet. (See the Mayan demo for guidance.)

Discuss and draft a joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.

32A case study demonstration of exercises 2a, b, and c

Introducing the Mayan Community Project

The Whole Game Learning overview demonstrates the use of these tools in performing a three-part evaluation of a learning project.

In this slide deck, we have excerpted a brief synopsis of the Mayan project itself along with the completed worksheets for 2a, b, and c.

You will also find more extensive information on the High Tech High Mayan project website.


Summary of the Mayan Community Project An extended, interdisciplinary project with individual & group research

on the Mayan culture and Mayan areas of present-day Guatemala Application of knowledge to collaborative writing & illustration

of a children’ alphabet book on the Mayan culture Publication, marketing and sales of copies of the book to fund

schooling for seven Guatemalan students from impoverished families

• Essential questions: Why is it important to learn about the Mayan civilization today? How are books published and marketed? What is life currently like for people of Mayan descent?

• Learning goals include: Knowledge of Mayan culture, the reality of poverty in Central America, skills in writing and editing for publication, actual experience of job roles in the publishing process, business planning, marketing & sales, and the empowerment of “how to make a difference in a child’s life”!

• Process is in-depth and over time: 12-week project, with approximately 2 hours class time/day, group and individual research, 2-3 revisions of book pages, student choice of research topics & job roles.

• Authentic, culminating experiences and assessments: Peer editors wielding the “Changes Needed” or “Approved” stamps, “Book Signing” (exhibition), and book selling activities in and with the local community.






Related readingThis slide deckMaking Learning Whole, by David PerkinsThe High Tech High Mayan Community Project websiteThe MyWays Success Framework: Student Competencies for Learning, Work, and Life

ToolsWhole Game Learning Analysis Tool (for Exercise 2a)

Junior Version Characteristics Tool (for Exercise 2b)Competency Correlation Tool (for Exercise 1a and 2c)

37Resources for Exercises 2a, b, and cLearning Design as Rich as Your Definition of Student Success


https://www.amazon.com/Making-Learning-Whole-Principles-Transform/dp/0470633719/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1491828214&sr=8-5&keywords=whole+game+learning



38Putting MyWays to Work / Q.4 – Assessment Design

MyWays offers exercises and other tools to help school design and leadership teams put a practical, research-based lens on their models across all three of these questions.




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Two key shifts are needed for an effective, nuanced assessment of broader and deeper competencies.

To measure broader and deeper competencies comprised of both capability and agency will require new approaches to assessment. Not only must we begin to assess hard-to-measure competencies like creativity, social skills, and wayfinding abilities; we must also gauge how well students “own” these competencies and apply them in real-world settings.

Next generation assessment systems that can address this challenge are some ways in the future. The crucial first step for next generation educators, we believe, is to adopt these two shifts in assessment practice.

MyWays Assessment Design – The Concepts

StandardizedStudent Assessments Tasks in the Outside World

Knowledge is: Measured within a subjectApplied across disciplines, along with other skills, to solve real-world problems, create products, and generate new knowledge.

Asked to address:

Facts and application of simple procedures to well‐defined problems

Complex, ill structured problems‐ in real-world contexts.

Work is done: Individually Individually and in groups of others with complementary skills to accomplish a shared goal.

Resources available:

Without access to outside information, and use only paper and pencil

The challenge is to evaluate information from a wide range of tools and resources to find what’s relevant to analyze problems and create solutions

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The Shift to Greater Authenticity requires moving from poor proxies to measures of competence in tasks similar to those performed in the outside world. See the Assessment Overview for further information.

MyWays Assessment Design – The Concepts

Adapted for the Stupski Foundation from Transforming Education: Teaching and Assessing 21st Century Skills (Cisco, Intel, Microsoft), 2010

Traditional assessments, especially most state testing, focuses on performance on non-authentic measures like multiple choice questions. Better state tests and AP include essays that enable students to construct responses at higher orders of thinking, but do not incorporate more complex, authentic contexts or settings.

MyWays Assessment Design – The Concepts 41

NOTE: A set of field of learning slides is available for your use including an empty grid for your own plots.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6f54lcxrfojz4k2/MyWays%20field%20of%20learning%20slides%2020151027v1-0.pptx?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6f54lcxrfojz4k2/MyWays%20field%20of%20learning%20slides%2020151027v1-0.pptx?dl=0

Assessment of broader & deeper competencies is only fully possible through measurement embedded in whole game learning approaches involving rich simulation, extended projects, or immersion in real-world settings – contexts that increase the development of student agency, capability, and adaptability.


The Shift to Multiple and Varied Measures requires moving from single, narrow assessments to multiple forms of measurement that are more varied, more developmentally-nuanced, and better integrated.

While one can envision basic mastery of multiplication tables being confirmed by simple quizzes or tests, assessing broader and deeper competencies like creativity, social skills, and wayfinding abilities requires a more multifaceted approach.

Because multiple forms of measures for any given competency are not the norm in traditional school models, we turn to state driving requirements for new drivers as a concrete and familiar example of such a system. At first blush, one might associate the road test as the qualifier for getting one’s license. However, over the past century, states have evolved systems of multiple, mandatory requirements to ensure the safety of drivers, passengers, and the public.


How do we assess important life skills?

The “driving test”


Learning to drive is one important real-world skill, for which a mature system of learning, assessment, and certification has been developed over time.

Think about one example, the Massachusetts driving test. To the left we list the common components of the test, and on the following slide, we analyze what kinds of assessment experience are embedded in each component, and how they come together as an integrated system.

MA Requirements Assessment involved Written test of road rules – to get permit

30 hours of classroom instruction, with test at end

Computer simulations

6 hours of official driving observation

12 hours of official driving practice

40 hours additional practice, usually with parents

2 hour parent education class

The Road Test

How do we assess important life skills? The “driving test” as a system of multiple, varied assessments embedded in a learning experience

The MA “driving test” is actually a series of assessment-embedded learning experiences with multiple forms of measurement, addressing content knowledge, application, and creative know how, through authentic performance.

MA Requirements Assessment involved Written test of road rules – to get permit

Multiple choice, fact based; summative gateway to learner’s permit

30 hours of classroom instruction, with test at end

Formative feedback; scenarios for understanding of skills, consequences ; summative test on simple analytical

Computer simulations Incorporating application of knowledge and skills

6 hours of official driving observation

Introduction to the authentic learning environment; group/peer learning

12 hours of official driving practice

Practice loops in authentic environment with instant instructor feedback

40 hours additional practice, usually with parents

Practice loops in varying circumstances - different adult, different car - confirming transfer

2 hour parent education class

No assessment. Requirement is “programmatic”/seat time

The Road Test Performance-based assessment in complex, authentic environment


Similarly, a “next generation” system of learning assessments will need to integrate the use of five key strategies.

Integration of these strategies will align assessment with holistic learning, and help gauge and guide learner progress towards the new, broader goal-line:

Formative assessmentTo provide the essential foundations for effective learning & personal developmentPerformance assessmentTo provide the rich context for development and measurement of Agency as well as CapabilityMultiple & varied measuresTo address the whole learner and the breadth of competencies within Next Gen leaning environmentsBadging & micro-credentialingTo integrate “anywhere, anytime learning” within personalized learning approachesQuality reviewsTo ensure the quality of the learner experience when outcomes can’t be measured (and even when they can)


Going deeper with thefive assessment strategies For each of the five strategies, the Next Gen Assessment overview includes a one-page primer, like the one to the right. These primers are not intended to be comprehensive nor to provide in-depth analysis of the technical merits of each strategy, but rather to get design teams thinking and discussing the level of variety, nuance, and integration needed to develop assessments for broader and deeper competencies.

Each includes brief notes on:

-- Why the strategy is important-- Examples of this type of measurement-- Comments “through the MyWays lens”-- A few resources as food for thought

The overview also includes a one page summary chart of all five assessment strategies for reference. Deeper exploration of the strategies will be provided in forthcoming practice briefings.


It is important to stress that the use of all five assessment strategies extends across all the MyWays domains and competencies. What will not work, we are certain, is to try to isolate each of the 20 competencies and create a (likely inauthentic) way to assess each one! Indeed, educators would not even want to take each of the four MyWays domains and chose a different assessment strategy to address each of those.

That being said, the Next Gen Assessment overview provides a summary of considerations for assessing in each domain, like the one to the left, that summarizes: • The current state of assessment • Main approaches currently being used & new approaches being tried • Challenges of particular relevance

MyWays Assessment Design – The Concepts 48For those charged with designing learning and its environment, issues relating to assessment approaches vary somewhat across the four competency domains.

As Angela Duckworth and David Yeager urge, at the end of Measurement Matters:

“Given the advantages, limitations, and medium-term potential of such measures, our hope is that the broader educational community proceeds forward with both alacrity and caution, and with equal parts optimism and humility.”

The Next Gen Assessment overview provides a glimpse at the ways the field is moving forward, covering:• Cautions• Promising developments• Ways to work together, including: - Improvement communities like Carnegie’s SAIC and NGLC’s ALP - Partnerships between schools and assessment experts - Adaptation of approaches from other sectors


The field of next gen assessment is still emerging. Careful thought is warranted about the use of various assessment measures, especially for agency and Habits of Success; nevertheless, given the importance of these broader competencies, it seems equally impor-tant to avoid “analysis paralysis” and to forge ahead in collaborative and thoughtful ways.

Exercise 3a:How well is your school currently employing the five strategies that support next generation assessment?

These exercises are designed to help you use MyWays and the five assessment strategies to address the third big question:

How do we gauge students' progress in developing those competencies? And: How can we measure and articulate our school’s overall performance, beyond proficiency in ELA and math?

Review the Next Gen Assessment overview before tackling the exercises.

50Exercises 3a and 3bAssessment Design as Integrated as Your Definition of Student Success

Exercise 3b:How well is your school using elements of the five strategies to assess student progress within your learning projects?

Use the tools on the next two slides as checklists to aid you in evaluating and improving assessment experiences with respect to:

• The shifts to greater authenticity & multiple and varied measures

• The five assessment strategies most relevant to promoting the expanded success definition

• The 20 MyWays competencies

The goal is to equip your assessment design team with a reliable process for critiquing emerging assessment approaches—strengthening the extent to which you integrate your assessment with your learning, move towards more authentic tasks, and increase the range of assessment approaches in order to address broader and deeper competencies. Even at a quick, conceptual level, these tools can flag key issues and “help change the conversation” within your team with respect to transforming assessment as a force for teachers to better know their students and how to guide them, as well as for learners to get to understand themselves more fully.

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Using the tools in tandem to design assessment as integrated as your success definition and your learning model

Recapping the earlier exercisesExercises 3a and b build on the exercises in packets 1 and 2.

Exercises 1a and b explored the MyWays competency model, first comparing your school’s student success definition to MyWays and then using the MyWays Competency Plotting Tool to generate a competency plot of an individual’s current strengths, needs, and goals across the full set of MyWays competencies.

Exercises 2a, b, and c utilized the whole game learning principles to explore how well your learning projects reflect those principles, harness the benefits of junior versions, and map to the MyWays competencies.

Of course, your competency objectives, learning design, and assessment design all work together—and the seven MyWays tools presented in these exercises can be used in multiple ways and combinations.

Exercise 3a and 3b — and a case study demonstration

52Exercise 3a – Employing the five strategies that support next gen assessment

Exercise 3a.How well is your school currently employing the five strategies that support next gen assessment? Assemble a team to evaluate the assessment strategies you use in each of the four competency domains.

Read and discuss the Next Gen Assessment overview to more fully understand the two shifts and five assessment strategies. It is important for group members to be working from the strategy descriptions provided, rather than from individual interpretations of the strategy titles.

Download the Assessment-Competency Correlation Tool from the Toolbox.

Working as a group, list the various assessment methods your school is using currently for each domain. Capture especially methods designed to assess student performance in the outside world (authenticity); but also note that not all strategies need be employed in each domain. Discuss and describe strengths and problem areas worthy of attention.

Discuss the completed worksheet. Come up with a joint analysis of areas of strength and needed improvement. Generate an action plan based on that analysis.

Use the MyWays competency domains to analyze your overall assessment system.

Note: you can also do this analysis at the more detailed level of each competency. Detailed worksheets for each domain are provided.

Objectives: Gaining familiarity with the five strategies; visualizing your assessment strategies across your learning model; identifying areas for strengthening or augmenting

Enlarged on next slide

53Exercise 3a – Mapping assessments across the competency domains

54Exercise 3b – Using the five strategies to assess student progress

Exercise 3b.How well is your school using elements of the five strategies to assess student progress within your learning projects? This exercise in analyzing how multiple assessment strategies are used within a specific learning project is best understood by reviewing the demonstration using the Mayan Community Project.

Assemble a team to evaluate one of your existing learning experiences. We suggest selecting a multi-faceted experience (a junior version) that runs a semester or more.

Read and discuss the Next Gen Assessment overview, including descriptions of the five strategies (important to work from shared understanding of them) and Mayan demo.

Download the Assessment Strategy Analysis Tool from the Toolbox.

Working as a team, describe how each of the five assessment strategies is used (or not used) to assess student progress within that learning project. Record strengths and weaknesses within each assessment strategy. (See the Mayan demo for guidance.)

Discuss and come up with a joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.


Introducing the Mayan Community Project

The Next Gen Assessment overview demonstrates the use of the Assessment Strategy Analysis Tool in performing an evaluation of assessment practice in the same project as the one used for demonstration of the learning design tools introduced earlier in Exercise 2.

In this slide deck, we have excerpted a brief synopsis of the Mayan project itself along with just one section of the completed worksheet for 3b.

We encourage you to look for the full demo, including extensive assessment strategy worksheet, in Next Gen Assessment—as well as to connect all of this to the Mayan project learning design demo in the Whole Game Learning overview. While we have addressed learning and assessment separately within this series, the two are, rightly, deeply integrated in the design and implementation of the Mayan project.

A case study demonstration of exercise 3b

Summary of the Mayan Community Project An extended, interdisciplinary project with individual & group research

on the Mayan culture and Mayan areas of present-day Guatemala Application of knowledge to collaborative writing & illustration

of a children’ alphabet book on the Mayan culture Publication, marketing and sales of copies of the book to fund

schooling for seven Guatemalan students from impoverished families

• Essential questions: Why is it important to learn about the Mayan civilization today? How are books published and marketed? What is life currently like for people of Mayan descent?

• Learning goals include: knowledge of Mayan culture, the reality of poverty in Central America, skills in writing and editing for publication, actual experience of job roles in the publishing process, business planning, marketing & sales, and the empowerment of “how to make a difference in a child’s life”!

• Process is in-depth and over time: 12-week project, with approximately 2 hours class time/day, group and individual research, 2-3 revisions of book pages, student choice of research topics & job roles.

• Authentic, culminating experiences and assessments: Peer editors wielding the “Changes Needed” or “Approved” stamps, “Book Signing” (exhibition), and book selling activities in and with the local community.

56A case study demonstration of exercise 3b

57A case study demonstration of exercise 3b

This is the first of five sections of the assessment strategy analysis for the Mayan Community Project.

You can find the full analysis in the Next Gen Assessment overview.

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Related readingThis slide deckThe MyWays Success Framework: Student Competencies for Learning, Work, and Life

ToolsAssessment-Competency Correlation Tool (for Exercise 3a)Assessment Strategy Analysis Tool (for Exercise 3b)MyWays Field of Learning slides

Resources for Exercises 3a & 3bAssessment Design as Integrated as Your Definition of Student Success
