Popular Podagogy Podcast: AI and Assessment in the Classroom

Transcript

Talking about innovation in teaching and education. Popular Podagogy. Discussions that are topical and sometimes philosophical. Popular Podagogy. Popular Podagogy.

Chris Carton

Hi there. Thanks for joining us and welcome to another episode of Popular Podagogy, where we try to bring big ideas in teaching and education to life. I'm your host, Chris Carlton, and this podcast is being brought to you by the Faculty of Education at Queen's University. In this episode, I'm excited to be speaking with Dr. Christopher DeLuca, who is a professor of educational assessment at the Faculty of Education here at Queen's University. He is also the managing director of the Queen's Assessment and Evaluation Centre in Education. and leads the Classroom Assessment Research Team, which works to rethink classroom assessment theory and practice through leading empirical scholarship. Today, we are going to be asking the question, given the AI landscape, what should assessment look like in the classroom? Dr. DeLuca's research examines the intersection of assessment, curriculum, and pedagogy from a sociocultural framework. His work largely focuses on supporting teachers in negotiating these critical areas of practice to enhance student learning for all. Specifically, he investigates how pre-service and in-service teachers learn to engage the complexities of assessment in relationship to the tension between the evolving accountability culture in schools and the imperative for inclusivity as fundamental pedagogical principle. Chris, welcome to our podcast.

Chris DeLuca

It's great to be with you today, Chris.

Chris Carton

Now, Chris, before we get into the podcast topic of AI and assessment, I want to congratulate you on two of your newest children's books you have authored, that being Room Enough for All, released in May of this year, I think, and Max's Sparkly Shoes, being released this November, which encourages us to shine brightly, dance often, and always live as super sparkly you. a message that we could all use a bit more of these days. So thank you for those. And I'm excited for Max's Sparkling Shoes to come out.

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, thanks so much for mentioning those, Chris. It's a little hobby of mine to think about children's literature, but also it reminds us how assessment needs to capture the whole child and all of their many talents. And so there's lots of connections between the work.

Chris Carton

I especially liked when I went on to Room Enough for All, you've got a complete teacher guide. which is absolutely wonderful. I love when authors are able to show the practical side of the wonderful literacy that they're creating as well. So thank you from all of the teachers that will be using it on that as well.

Chris DeLuca

Thanks, Chris. Yeah, both books come with teacher guides that allow for parents and teachers to take up the key messages in lots of different ways across curricular areas.

Chris Carton

Wonderful. Looking forward to it. Chris, across classrooms, schools, and institutions, educators are rethinking what assessment looks like in a world increasingly shaped by generative AI. Well, AI offers new possibilities and I'm excited about a lot of them for feedback, efficiency, personalization, and data analysis. It also raises serious questions about equity, trust, validity, and the human elements of teaching and learning. In 2024, you authored a paper titled Large Scale Testing in the Face of AI. This article examines the expansive growth of ChatGPT and the implications for large scale test design. And you wrote that in order to address these challenges, a set of strategies is proposed that emphasizes authentic assessment and the importance of human elements in traditional paper and pencil questions. The topic seems to be on every teacher's mind, and AI seems to be evolving daily and is in the news daily. So from your point of view, what does the AI landscape look like right now?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, so certainly AI is on all of our minds because it's touching all aspects of our lives, whether that's our home life, finances, shopping, or education as well. And so I think one of the things we know now for sure, having experienced AI for a number of years, is that AI is here to stay. And that means that as educators and students within our system, we need to respond to that technology and that new technology and ask the question, how does that shift our pedagogy? How does that shift our assessment practice? So for me, and I think for educators, this means that we need to integrate AI into integrity of teaching and assessment and find ways of doing that. And that likely means adjusting some of our assessment practices, which I think is something we'll get into today.

Chris Carton

And you're right, AI is everywhere. And being able to leverage it in a way that is beneficial for the the students and the teachers is such an important topic and something that a lot of teachers struggle with. One of the things that I hear from my teachers as well, because we talk about AI in our classes, are some of the cautions, like the environmental impact and intellectual property safety. Could you talk to those issues a little bit in terms of what the AI landscape is like right now?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, absolutely. So as we become increasingly familiar with AI, we've also become aware of some of the cautions and the safeguards that need to be put in place if we're going to be using it within our teaching. Even in context where we prohibit its use, we know students still have access to it. And so one of our goals in education is to prepare responsible digital citizens. But to do that, not at the stake of compromising deep learning around curriculum. So that's the balance point we need to strike is supporting digital fluency and literacy while at the same time ensuring students are accessing our curriculum expectations and learning them with integrity. And of course, there's a host of other challenges that come with AI and cautions that we need to be aware of, including, as you mentioned, the environmental impacts, intellectual property rights, safety issues, particularly when we're dealing with youth and children, as well as being intentional about how this technology shapes our activities and our work as teachers. So who is ultimately responsible for student learning and assessment? It's the teacher and it's the student. It's not the technology. And we need to keep that front and center.

Chris Carton

I love that human aspect of it. We can look at ways to leverage AI, but we need to keep that human print on it at all times. And you talk about responsible digital citizenship and digital fluency and literacy. We've been talking about that for a long time, but that has changed even a little bit more because of AI introduction and ChatGPT. So it seems to be this evolving and constantly changing game area that we have to maneuver in as teachers.

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, for sure. I mean, all curriculum evolves with new knowledge and new opportunities. The pace of digital transformation is huge and fast. And so when we think about preparing digitally literate citizens, we need to be thinking about what are the technologies and skills they need now, but also how do we prepare them for what we know will be a continuously evolving landscape.

Chris Carton

I like that, what you just said, all curriculum evolves. And I think that's something that as teachers, we need to keep in mind that it's It's not just teaching from a textbook. It's not just teaching like we've always taught in the past. It's we need to evolve as teachers and the curriculum is changing dramatically and access to information is changing dramatically. And as soon as you prohibit something, it makes it more enticing for the students. So how do we get involved in it?

Chris DeLuca

That's right.

Chris Carton

So working from your aspect, given the current evolving AI landscape, what should assessment look like in the classroom? Because that's what teachers are talking about all the time is assessment, assessment, assessment, and what a lot of your research is about. So how does AI come into play now?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, so when we think about assessment, sort of against that backdrop of digital change and curricular change, What we want to hold on to are what we know to be good and sound assessment principles and practices that those don't change because we have new technologies as learning resources or new technology that helps us as educators either provide feedback, create more time for our work, or other kinds of efficiencies. So we want to hold on to what we know are good and sound assessment principles as we continue to design new ways of measuring student learning in this evolving context as we've mentioned. So for me, what this really means is expanding our repertoire of assessment practices, but also getting, I think, increasingly comfortable with both authentic assessments and formative assessment practices, because I see those two as especially important moving forward and supporting our learners today.

Chris Carton

I really like the good and sound assessment principles, we need to hold onto those. So we're not throwing everything out. This is not creating something brand new. It's what we have and then going from there. Can I just get you to expand on the authentic assessment? When you talk about authentic assessment, can you explain that a little bit more for our listeners?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, so authentic assessment is any opportunity we give students to apply their learning in real world and real human activities. And I think when we look at the definition of authentic assessment that way, we begin to see its immediate relevance given how AI is shaping learning. That it doesn't negate the fact that AI can be part of learning, AI can support some learning activities, but the ultimate application and the ability for students to see the value of learning in real world and real human activities becomes the heart of our assessment practice. this also means we lean into those distinctly human activities in our learning environments, those pieces like collaboration, creativity, curiosity, and connection with self, others, and in fact, our environment. And so when we put all of that together, it asks our teachers and asks our students to begin to engage assessment from authentic connection, relational, connection, relationship based principles.

Chris Carton

Again, pulling out these little tidbits that you're in, the value of learning in the real world and real world activities. I can't stress that enough for my own students in terms of how that is showing them the relevance of what they're learning. And so we can incorporate AI into that as well, which is phenomenal. Because I work with pre-service teachers, I know from just conversations with them that they're being inundated constantly with all different types of new pedagogy. And so my question would be, what would your message be to new teachers who are just starting out, who are being challenged with all this new pedagogy? Where should they start?

Chris DeLuca

Right, so when I think about that question in the context of their assessment practice and how we build new teachers' assessment literacy and capacity, I say let's start with some of the basics. Back to that idea of what are the sound and good principles for assessment, whether it's digitally mediated or not. Our teacher candidates need to have a grasp of that. What I've noticed and what our research has indicated is that teachers are coming into our BED classrooms, our pre-service programs, and our assessment classrooms, asking some big questions, like how is assessment and equity, how are those two related? How does one maybe... limit the other, and questions about how does new technologies impact our assessment practice. So our candidates are asking the right questions, and it's our job to say, well, here are the sound principles of assessment, and here's how these bigger concepts work together so that you can design assessment experiences that are beneficial for your learners.

Chris Carton

Again, getting back to basics, figure out what we know, what are sound and good essential principles, And then how can they be connected with the new technology that's coming out?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, absolutely. And part of this also, part of this work not only for pre-service teachers, but in-service teachers as well, is getting a bit more comfortable with non-traditional assessment methods. Again, we know how to design good authentic tasks. And yet in many contexts, we rely on those traditional assessment formats like tests or essays or individually based assessments. And so we need to, in particular in this environment, push that envelope a little bit and start to get into some comfort around authentic assessment.

Chris Carton

I'm going to push you one more time, Chris. Can you expand a little bit on non-traditional assessment? Because for me, non-traditional assessment ties so nicely into real life application. So could you just highlight that a little bit? We all know the paper and pencil and there is room and there's still use for paper and pencil tests. But I love that as soon as you talk about non-traditional, I think more about authentic assessment and being able to show them that real life application. Could you just expand on that?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, for sure. And I just want to start by underscoring what you just mentioned, Chris, which is we're not throwing out paper and pencil assessments, right? Those have a place. And what I want to bring to this conversation is that teachers make intentional choices about when those forms of assessment are most appropriate and for what learning expectations And when can we expand that assessment repertoire towards what we're considering non-traditional assessment methods, or in the case of what we're talking about, more authentic assessment methods? So of course, when we think about non-traditional, that's a wide range. It can include any performance task. And when we lean into authentic assessments, it's a specific type of performance task where we're asking our candidates and our students to make those real world, real life connections. so that they actually see the curriculum come alive for them.

Chris Carton

And you're preaching to the choir here, Chris, because I use those same terminology in terms of bringing education to life and showing them the real life application to themselves, but also to the real world as well so that they're seeing it around them. When I talk about science, I talk about it's living around them. So how do we incorporate into that? And you sort of touched on it also, the student voice, student choice, making sure that they're involved in the assessment process and how they see it as authentic or not.

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's another. key to this time of assessment in our schools, which is how do we use formative assessment, which involves student agency, student voice, student choice, student self-assessment, peer assessment, how do we leverage that throughout the learning periods so that not only we can monitor and check on what students are doing and what they know in relation to maybe what AI is generating and supporting, but also how do we use all of those formative assessment practices to propel students' learning and ensure that we're using AI ethically. So that when we encounter a challenge with a student using AI inappropriately, it's not at the end of learning, it's not in the summative assessment. We catch that earlier and we have some authentic conversations about what does it mean to use AI effectively and responsibly.

Chris Carton

I think that's what, from my point of view, authentic assessment is all about is not just the authentic in terms of real life, but authentic meaning catching it at all phases of the learning process. So it's not just a snapshot at the end. I'm looking forward because we're going to have, as part of this podcast, some of your resources that are available. And I would encourage all of the teachers that are listening and that are told to jump onto the classroom assessment research team website because it has so much information in there and you've written so many articles about this and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot more coming out as you continue to develop these theories for you. Chris, this has been such an exciting conversation. I am I'm still very new about using AI and trying to figure out how to leverage it in the best way for teacher education. But it's something that, as you said, we don't have to throw out all the old. We just have to find those good and solid assessment principles and then see how we can incorporate AI into them. And I think that's a wonderful message for the new teachers to keep the old, keep those tried and tested ones and just find ways that AI can enhance that even more for the student experience and the teacher experience.

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, for me, certainly one of the things that the onset of AI has done is put a spotlight on the need for teachers to engage intentionally with assessment practices. It's put a spotlight on teacher education programs to say how are we preparing teachers with the assessment capacity to do this work well within schools. And that's exciting because it means that we're focusing on things that really matter to support not only learning, but good and authentic assessments. And so I think AI, if it's done nothing else for us, it is at least supporting us with intention in our teaching and our assessment practice. And the other piece I want to maybe add here is the idea that, and maybe just to underscore what you mentioned there, Chris, which is when we first encountered AI in education, there was a real rumbling that this might totally transform what it means to teach, what it means to learn, and what it means to assess. And I think what we can say now after a few years engaging with it is it doesn't mean throwing everything out. It also doesn't mean going back to completely locked down traditional forms of assessment. There is a middle ground here, a middle rd that we can walk when we bring intention and professional learning to this practice.

Chris Carton

And Chris, I think having a spotlight shone on some of our activities and our pedagogies is such an important thing because we need to relook at them. We can't be always resting on something that we thought was the only way to do it. So there are some positives to AI coming out.

Chris DeLuca

Absolutely. And some safeguards. So we balance those too. We balance all of them.

Chris Carton

Which is with every new thing. There's the pros and the cautions. So we need to look at both of those things. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. And I can guarantee you this is not going to be the last podcast that you and I are going to talk about AI and how we can leverage it as teachers. So thank you so much.

Chris DeLuca

Thanks, Chris, and I look forward to our future conversations.

Chris Carton

That does it for another episode of Popular Podagogy. Again, thank you to Dr. Christopher De Luca. I hope you take the time to visit our podcast website and view some of the additional information available there. Josh, as always, where can our listeners subscribe to make sure they don't miss any of our Popular Podagogy podcasts?

Chris DeLuca

Yeah, if you like what you hear, please subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the CFRC website, the Faculty of Education website, and pretty much any place you get your podcasts.

Chris Carton

Please don't forget to check out our Queen's Faculty of Education website and search for popular pedagogy for additional resources. Well, that's it from myself, Chris Carlton, and our incredibly talented and resourceful podcast team of Josh Vine and Erin York. Stay healthy, stay safe, and stay connected, and we will see you next time for another episode of Popular Podagogy.