It was restaurant day, a culmination of our eateries unit, which explored how an eatery works, the importance of eateries, roles and responsibilities in eateries, and how eateries help the community. Children collaborated in small groups, demonstrating their learning about how an eatery functions and how to work as a team. Amongst the groups was the “Mexican Burrito Restaurant” team. They were working in our outside garden space, and while they were highly engaged in the task at hand, they also kept getting “distracted,” as most children their age do. The head chef in this group was crafting beautiful tacos using leaves as a shell and flowers as her filling. Another child was taking pride in the restaurant’s money box he had created in our Idea Box Center, where recycled materials are used for inventions. The pressure to film a final video to document their presentation of learning in this unit loomed over my head, but not theirs. As they continued to define roles and negotiate who would do each job in their restaurant, one of the students observed a small caterpillar munching on a leaf above their heads.
Revisiting the Connection Between Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences and Progressive Education Assessment Practices
At the end of the Fall 2024 semester, I was reminded of the wonderful impact that Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (introduced to me close to 25 years ago) continues to have on my teaching practice. It was the last day of class for the second cohort of our University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Education Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy masters students. In addition to the incredible amount of reading, writing, and dialogue they had engaged in over the course of the semester, the group was invited by my co-teacher (Dr. Chad Miller) and I to give a presentation of learning using a modality that would best communicate and illustrate their growth. In the presentation criteria we encouraged them to use a medium that would, “capture the spirit of who you are becoming as a progressive educator and philosopher.” It was a small parameter embedded into this end of semester assessment activity, a piece of criteria that ultimately yielded a very moving set of deliverables.
The Fragile Compatibility of Test Scores and Progressive Pedagogy
What role should tests play in progressive pedagogy? It depends on what one means by “test.” Let’s say a “test” is a qualitative assessment, a judgment that teachers, students, and sometimes parents construct together. Then, assessments should be commonplace and central in progressive education. For example, a blog post here this April described the Hanahau‘oli “three-way conference,” where each student shares and discusses their portfolio with their teacher and caregiver (Makaiau & Galdeira, 2022). Such an assessment is entirely consistent with progressive aims, by helping to develop student initiative, positioning the three parties in a cooperative triangle, and orienting all parties toward development from existing assets (Peters, 2019).
The Three-Way Conference: A Progressive Education Assessment Practice that Teaches Asset Framing & Self-Direction
There are a number of characteristics that help to define a progressive educator’s approach to assessment. This includes an overall philosophy of education that values intellectual curiosity, initiative, independence, collaboration, and evidence of growth over time, and a pedagogy for measuring student learning in accordance with these values. Assessment is differentiated, allowing children many ways to demonstrate what has been learned. Individual learners are responsible for learning and are taught how to set goals, define evidence of goal achievement and reflect about progress. Students’ skill development (e.g. in math, language arts, inquiry, etc.) is reported on a continuum with descriptors to show what children are able to do at various points in time.