THUNDER BAY - In the last 20 years, the way teachers teach and the way students learn, has undergone a lot of changes, and the Ontario government believes the way students are assessed needs to change as well.
For the past several weeks, a series of public information sessions have been held across the province to gather feedback on how students are assessed in the classroom.
In September 2017, the provincial government announced the launch of an independent review of assessment and reporting to ensure educational assessments are culturally relevant and better reflect equity and student well-being.
On Monday, the final public information session was held in Thunder Bay following sessions held in six other cities across Ontario.
According to Carol Campbell, education advisor to the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Education, the purpose of the meetings is to gather feedback from teachers, students, education facilitators, and parents on provincial assessments, the Education Quality and Accountability Office examinations, and Ontario’s participation in national and international assessments.
“We are asking what is the best assessment to support our students to learn,” Campbell said before the meeting in Thunder Bay.
The current assessment methods and EQAO were first established more than 20 years ago and in that time, Campbell said a lot of things have changed inside the classroom.
“In 20 years, the way our students are learning is changing,” she said. “Now when we think about the use of technology, the world our children live in, and that we want them to be equipped for, is changing. The way our teachers teach is changing.”
“We need to think about the future of assessments because our EQAO tests at the moment remain as students working individually, in silence, with a paper and pencil test,” Campbell continued. “I do think it’s time to look at how we renew our approach to assessment.”
For Dan Maltais, a grade 7/8 teacher with the Thunder Bay and District Catholic School Board, the current form of assessment is stressful for both students and teachers.
Maltais said teachers are always assessing students and working with them so to move the student’s education forward. But standardized testing across the province is not necessarily helping that process.
“You really do have to know where the kids are at and how they are preforming,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be what you are, a tester. You are a teacher. You are hired to teach, not to test the kids constantly and put everything down to some kind of formula or set of marks that means something somewhere.”
Maltais suggests a random sampling of students may be more appropriate, rather than subjecting all students province-wide to such tests and assessments.
“If the government really wants to do testing, why not just do spot checks throughout the province, not making all children write these tests,” he said.
Throughout the last several weeks of meetings, Campbell said a lot of feedback has been gathered on how to move forward with provincial assessments, but no consensus is visible just yet.
“We are beginning to look at what the big themes are and how we can support students,” she said. “Students now are used to apps and technology and used to quick feedback. So we need to look at our assessment system in that light.”
Campbell recognizes that in a province as vast and geographically diverse as Ontario that it’s not going to be easy finding a solution that fits all areas of the province or all the people living here.
“We need to think about how we support our students to learn,” she said. “We need to also think about how we support all communities. When we think about rural and remote communities, aboriginal students, our newcomers, as well as our Canadian students, we need to consider all of our students.”
With the public information sessions wrapping up, the next step will be compiling a report for the Premier and the Minister of Education, which is expected to be completed by March 2018.
Online feedback is still being accepted at the review website until Dec. 15.
