Future Ready Learning

Recommendations
Revise practices, policies, and regulations to ensure privacy and information protection while
enabling a model of assessment that includes ongoing gathering and sharing of data for continuous
improvement of learning and teaching.
This will require not only greater systems interoperability standards but also increased capacity on
the part of educators and administrators to understand the types of systems they want to establish
within schools and colleges. In addition, they will need to have an understanding of the standards
of interoperability they should demand from vendors. A key component of this increased
capacity should ensure educational leaders have a firm understanding of privacy and security
concerns, how those concerns are addressed within the school or system, and clear communication
of policies and procedures with all stakeholders. Achievement of this recommendation would
benefit from the involvement and guidance of organizations, such as CoSN, ISTE, and the State
Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), that have developed specialized expertise
in these areas.
States, districts, and others should design, develop, and implement learning dashboards,
response systems, and communication pathways that give students, educators, families, and
other stakeholders timely and actionable feedback about student learning to improve achievement
and instructional practices.
The next generation of such tools should integrate across platforms and tools seamlessly, be
designed with a mobile-first mindset, and be guided by UD and UDL principles to ensure accessibility
by all stakeholders. Although current products and dashboards include basic functionality
and features that improve on those of their predecessors, future iterations should be built on a
premise of feedback and conversation, allowing learners and families to discuss learning outcomes
and evidence and increasing agency and ownership across stakeholder groups.
Create and validate an integrated system for designing and implementing valid, reliable, and
cost-effective assessments of complex aspects of 21st century expertise and competencies
across academic disciplines.
Interoperable formative assessment formats offered by major testing consortia for use by educators
throughout the year are an important first step. However, work remains to ensure more educators
have access to high-quality formative assessment tools and to develop additional capacities
to assess both cognitive and non-cognitive skills better. Moving forward, increasing educator
capacity for the design and deployment of valid and reliable formative assessments will require the
concerted efforts of current assessment developers, teacher preparation programs, school systems,
and researchers. Furthermore, colleges and universities will benefit from system-wide reviews of
assessment practices and from ensuring all faculty have deep understandings of key principles and
practices surrounding the design and implementation of effective learning assessments.
Research and development should be conducted that explore how embedded assessment
technologies such as simulations, collaboration environments, virtual worlds, games, and
cognitive tutors can be used to engage and motivate learners while assessing complex skills.
Although some of this research is in its early stages, the way forward will require close collaboration
among organizations—such as GlassLab, Games for Change, and iCivics; colleges, universities, informal
learning spaces, and schools; philanthropic organizations; and research institutions—that have
a deep understanding of how game mechanics increase learner motivation. This collaboration can
lead to the development of more effective and engaging experiences to support learning.
OFFICE OF Educational Technology
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