Langford International, Inc.

Ed,
Thanks for the link on system thinking rubrics. I don’t know if you wanted my feedback or not, but since you are contemplating Capacity Matrices for professional development, I will give my feedback anyway. The great thing about feedback is that you don’t have to do anything with it.

I read with interest the document on Systems Thinking Rubrics that you referred to in your post.

Where to start?

First, the only people who learned or will learn about systems thinking from this document are the people who created it. The creators spent a massive amount of time thinking about systems and what they believe is important for people to know. This is what you want all learners to do. All others will be sub-optimized. You cannot evaluate your way into learning. Learning comes from reflection, deep thinking and practice over time that creates neuron connections.

Second, this document is a great example of misguided theory. Unfortunately, rubrics are now common practice in k-12 schools (best practice), they sound like a great idea, until you think about it. These well meaning folks, putting in best effort (“We are being killed by best efforts.” – Deming) have confused process and content and therefore students will be confused. What they are attempting is teacher directed instead of learning oriented.

The thinking is already defined so there is little room for learners to make new connections, students simply memorize what the teacher wants them to know. Memorization is temporary-potentiation. Learners will not create new theories, thinking or application around systems thinking: long-term potentiation.

Third, their levels ( Novice, Basic, Proficient, Advanced) are teacher assessments, not levels of thinking (Information, knowledge, Know-How, Wisdom). They have replaced A,B,C,D with A,P,B,N they are rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Many times schools simply replace a report card with a rubric and rate the children in the same way. When you identify and allow sub-levels of poor performance that is what you get.

When a learner looks at a term such as Interdependencies you want to challenge them to think. Do I know what this term means? (information) Do I understand what this means in relation to Systems thinking? (Knowledge) Can I explain how the concept of Interdependencies is applied? (Know-How) Can I teach this to others? (Wisdom)

Fourth, they have complicated learning. They have taken 11 pages to do what can be done with a Capacity Matrix© in one page or at the most two pages. These rubrics make me think about this quote from Einstein, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Fifth, it is not evident that learners are to create integrated projects applying their learning.

Rubrics can be useful if they are used like a ladder to Quality. Personally, I trialled rubrics for several years and found them to be far too teacher-oriented and time consuming in relation to the amount of learning gained. I gave them up for Operational Definitions of Quality Work and Capacity Matrices© for reflection.

Well those are some of my initial thoughts. These questions and comments help me to clarify my own thinking. Myron Tribus used to say, “I need to hear what I think.” I hope we will hear what others think also.

I would be happy to assist you in developing Capacity Matrices© for professional development of your team. We have worked with many organizations to do this. Let me know if I can help.

David

I get the impression from the US of so many people trying so hard to make things better. Like the UK, staff seem to do all the work! I am convinced that US secondary / high schools (like UK schools) have systems the wrong way round. The classroom is part of the school’s learning, support and prep operation. In the UK the pastoral care system is there to catch the fallen..same as your counselling approach. This is actually the wrong way round (in my view) and gives the wrong idea about learning and learners which make teaching more difficult..wish I had longer to explain…

Rubrics can be useful as a feedback tool for self assessment – so long as there is no grade attached. Once you apply grading to tallies or scores on the rubric you are creating a formula for mediocre performance – what is the least I must do to get by? Ah ha! the middle column!
However if they are used as an in-process measure leading to the quality performance required of the task – defined through operational definitions and so on, they can show students (or staff members) where their current performance needs improvement, and what to aim for. As a secondary teacher in Australia, I have often found that students (and teachers) need coaching in how to recognise what they have done well and what needs improvement. Left alone they tend to consider only such things as presentation, neatness and accuracy of spelling etc. Depth of thinking is not something they can recognise or evaluate easily. Rubrics can demonstrate that these factors are part of an overall evaluation of quality but not the whole picture and the stepping out of the skills involved that a rubric offers can be helpful in demonstrating where they need to go next in improving their work.

However, if scores are introduced and grades are equated to these scores, then the rubric does untold damage.
Of course this begs the question – is any grade other than A acceptable? If quality is defined, then anyone reaching or exceeding that defined quality should be graded A and if they don’t reach it they should be given time and assistance to achieve it – or we are telling out students that the learning is not important enough to be done well and demonstrated thoroughly. Wouldn’t it be better to stop grading altogether?
Perhaps we are giving in to the pressures of systemic factors that try to force teachers to move at a pace driven by external factors other than student learning. The teacher is often caught in the middle of systemic forces and what is best for student learning. This catch is usually expressed as not enough time to do all that is required and cover all that is expected – and we are forced to compromise and accept half learning, thereby entrenching minimalistic thinking, under achievement and lack of student self-esteem because they are never supported long enough to feel the success of achieving genuine quality work. The simple result is generations of students who are graded, ranked and branded (usually by themselves) with words like stupid, dumb, lazy, slow, plodder, underachiever, no hoper, ordinary. Not because they are not capable of achieving the quality of work needed – but because the system has blocked them.

If only educators would forget about how to find clever ways to arrive at grades for students, look at the learning that is needed and provide better feedback for improvement, we might stop turning ourselves inside out and wasting valuable time. If we set up methods for students to gather data about their learning and self assess against quality criteria – we would be more productive.