Quote-A-Day: Day 280

The best #learning often happens when we don’t even know it is taking place. #QuoteADay #Day280 #edchat #edu #NYedchat #ASCDL2L #TiTC

This morning we began work on our Teaching is the Core grant program.  Organized by New York State to help reduce the focus on standardized testing by helping districts craft assessments for learning (rather than of learning), this program will provide districts with two years worth of professional learning, feedback, and assessment design assistance.

Our facilitator, Diane Cunningham (from Learner-Centered Initiatives) began by sharing a powerful quote: “Assessment is at its best, when students don’t know it is taking place.”

I tweeted the comment out, and then I began thinking about it a little deeper.

In my eyes, it isn’t just assessment that is at its best when we don’t know it is occurring; it seems to me that it is all learning in general.

When we focus on the actual process of learning, we can become lost in the procedure, rather than actually engaging in the learning.  So, I believe that by not knowing we’re actually learning, we can tend to learn even more than if we were thinking about the act of learning itself.

Why is this important?

Well, if we want to emphasize the learning of others (or our own, for that matter), we should be less concerned with learners knowing they’re learning, and more concerned with making the learning truly meaningful and relevant for all those involved.

Only then can learning actually solidify to become life.  And that makes all the difference.