Greetings to all, 


I find it very heartening that Marie has expressed interest in renewing a discussion about EFF (Equipped for the Future, see http://eff.cls.utk.edu/).  I am responding to the applicable section of Marie's post below, in which she wrote:


Michael Gyori wrote:
‘If one were to use the content standards depicted in
them (the EFF Skills Wheel; see the EFF Assessment Resource Collection at http://eff.cls.utk.edu/assessment/default.htm)
as a platform for working with our students, I believe that the noncognitive traits discussed especially this week could be
incorporated into instruction, and with concerted efforts to nurture positive
affect, addressed on both the "cognitive" as well as
"affective" planes.’    [Sent
through to the discussion list Thu  10/1/2009 2:41 PM]
 
Michael:  can you talk about how you would incorporate some of the noncognitive traits into instruction?  Also, how would you understand where to begin
– in other words, what types of assessing would you do in order to
identify the needs of your students, based on the EFF standards?

I can only write in the most general of terms here.  


Firstly,
for the record, I dismiss the notion of "noncognitive traits." When I
proposed perhaps using the term affect, I was by no means replacing one
label with another, which, in the absence of any other repercussions,
would lead to an exercise in semantics.  


Non-cognition
does not in any primary manner denote the "realm" of feelings or
emotions; affect very much does.  I have cited motivation as an example
that has been placed under the heading of non-cognitive.  I believe that
a lack of motivation has both cognitive and affective roots, as I have
stated previously. Rather than coming up with measures that define
whatever level of motivation to do one thing or another might exist
(along with its possible predictive value and application for extrinsic
purposes), I am much more interested in the development of motivation. 
To complicate matters, again as I have stated elsewhere, a lack of
motivation may be extremely justified (e.g. boredom on the affective,
and meaninglessness on the "cognitive" plane and the close
interconnection between the two). 


The
EFF Content Standards (I wish they could be called something else!)
appear to have fallen somewhat by the wayside by virtue of the huge
challenge associated with assessing them in a formal or standardized
(presumably norm-referenced) manner.  If I am correct, then the first
question is, should the content standards become first and foremost the
target of assessment? The answer, I suppose, lies in how we would
"assess" them in the first place.

Before
attempting to assess the content standards, I believe it is much more
meaningful to incorporate them as topics for discussion (orally and in
writing followed by whole-group reading as a concurrent "writing
workshop" approach).  Many of the principles embedded in the standards
are not easy to understand in the first place (not so much on the level
of the meaning of the words used to delineate them, but more so in the
underlying concepts that inform them). Further, the content standards
might be faulted for being culturally biased and difficult to render
personally meaningful.

I
am suggesting that we reduce our preoccupation with assessment,
especially in the formal and standardized sense of the term.  Let's
collect "data" from our learners with respect to the content standards,
data comprised of thoughts that arise and ideas that develop in the
course of discussion.  I guess it comes down to formative (self-) assessment of
sorts, to begin with. Before we can assess anything in a more formal
(most especially discreet) fashion, the very standards themselves need
to become operationally meaningful and transparent.

I'll leave it at that for now with the hope that more discussion ensues.

  

 
Michael A. Gyori 
Maui International Language School 
www.mauilanguage.com


      
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