Measuring What Matters

At a recent convening of the One Stone national advisory team in Boise, ID, we captured a conversation between a diverse group of innovative thought leaders as they unpacked “measuring what matters.” The national advisory team, that includes Julia Freeland (Christensen Institute), Eduardo Briceño (Mindset Works), Sasha Barab (School for the Future of Innovation in Society /Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University /Center for Games and Impact), Tony Lewis (Donnell-Kay Foundation) and Alex Hernandez (Charter School Growth Fund), engaged in a thoughtful conversation that explored insights around measuring social and emotional learning and the importance of student outlets for articulating ownership of growth.

One Stone is an innovative, student-directed high school in its second year of implementation. Over the course of our three day visit, their evidence of impact was illustrated through the their mission of “making students better leaders and the world a better place” and delivered by student reflections of personalized growth.

Key Takeaways:

[:51] An introduction to One Stone and their desired learning outcomes.
[1:34] Eduardo’s thoughts on the extent to which we can and should measure a growth mindset.
[3:35] The importance of qualitative feedback vs. quantitative.
[5:13] How and when Eduardo believes One Stone’s mindset assessment tools should be used.
[6:10] Is that information from those results aggregated?
[6:58] Does Alex see any schools that are doing a good job at providing formative feedback around mindset?
[8:50] Providing qualitative feedback and the difficulties of measuring it.
[11:54] Julia’s thoughts on mindset and how to make it important in education.
[14:02] Thoughts on measuring mindsets in a quantitative way.
[16:13] Opinions on measuring and quantifying Social Emotional Learning skills and feedback.
[19:19] Thoughts on giving and receiving feedback, and the challenge of measuring it.
[20:38] How much of the mindset, creativity, and skills category should be part of a competency-based system?
[25:29] Does Sasha see gamification as a part of the answer to measuring hard stuff?
[26:09] What kinds of feedback can be given to young people about difference-making?
[27:56] Ways to help prepare people to make a difference and help them build confidence in their impact-making skills.

Mentioned in This Episode:

One Stone
“S2:E56 Student-Led One Stone is Transforming Boise”
DSST Public Schools
Michael Crow, ASU’s President
ASU: School for the Future of Innovation in Society