In the thriving learner-centered ecosystem, we see every child as a full, vibrant human being—and that the world is where they will discover their whole self. Learning, therefore, is recognized as a dynamic process of discovery. This shift to valuing growth of each unique person leads us to define and measure success in new ways. The function of assessment becomes the means by which a learner sets, owns, and understands their trajectory and development toward those success metrics.

In 1994, David Tyack, William Tobin, and Larry Cuban used the term “the grammar of schooling” to describe the underlying blueprint of schooling that organizes and describes what we think of when we think of education (Tyack and Cuban, 1995). The grammar of schooling blueprint includes standardized assessments as tools for sorting learners and credentials connected to tracking, both serving to maintain a dominant culture and reinforcing social inequities. In order to step away from the grammar of schooling and envision something new, we begin with a mindset shift to a learner-centered worldview, and imagine together the assumptions of a system that is equitable, learner-centered, and community-based.

In an ecosystem, as an alternative to a grammar of schooling, we seek to prioritize a language of learning, embodied in a new way of thinking about and doing assessment. Assessment is a process that allows learners, educators, families, and community members to describe what they are learning, show how they are growing in their understanding and competency, and identify goals for further growth and support.

To prioritize this language of learning in the ecosystem, storytelling becomes a central act of assessment, with learners creating and owning their own narratives of learning, interwoven with the narratives of others’ journeys (Bruner 1991). These narratives provide a more organic way of understanding the health of the ecosystem over time, revealing patterns and behaviors that shape and impact the ecosystem.

Because this mindset shift values stories and authentic growth over time, credentialing becomes an important lever for building trust, reliability, and credibility in the ecosystem (Lave and Wenger 1991). Credentials serve as a means through which learners and others can tell, share, and make sense of each learner’s narrative of their own learning, creating markers and milestones within that story.

Therefore, learner-centered ecosystems view assessment and credentialing as functions in service of each learner pursuing their unique learning journey. Assessment is characterized by a commitment to building understanding and agency for each learner, and credentials become tools of communicating levels of competency to oneself and the greater community. In this chapter, we share guiding principles, tensions and trade-offs, and glimmers of the future, while also posing essential questions that communities might consider in their development of ecosystems.

When we frame assessment of learning in this way, it becomes characterized by a commitment to building understanding and agency for each learner. Assessment amplifies the learner’s voice to tell a nuanced story of their individual journey of growing and learning in community in a way that enables multiple choices and pathways to meaningful work, joy, knowledge, well-being, and self-actualization. Literacy and numeracy are seen as tools for independence and liberation, which are essential for every child to be a contributor to the community and world.

We suggest the following principles to guide the development of assessment structures in ecosystems:

At the individual level, assessment in the ecosystem provides meaningful and positive ways for learners to talk about their learning and share what matters to them about it. There are dispositions needed for assessment to be truly learner-centered: compassion, care, intimacy, and joy become a natural expression of assessment in the ecosystem. Assessment becomes a vehicle that not only is used to guide learning, but also to build skills and experiences for learners to express their own learning journeys, respecting their natural ways of storytelling and using multiple ways of expressing knowledge including the arts, writing, demonstrations, and digital and real-world application. In addition, assessment may be multidimensional and multi-modal: assessment takes the form that makes the most sense to the learner.

A thriving ecosystem takes into account the lifelong learning continuum, with infinite entry/end points that do not assume a linear progression. Assessments can empower learners of all ages and backgrounds, no matter their level or modality of education. When assessments are adaptive and emergent, rather than fixed on rigid expectations, they create a new level of ownership and intimacy between a learner and their learning and offer a new level of usefulness by giving actionable feedback to the learner that promotes improvement and self-reflection.

Consider assessment as part of a learning progression: assessment can happen throughout the process of learning. The time frame and sequence of assessing is aligned with what will catalyze learning and be in support of the learner. It is about empowering the learner along their journey, rather than as a means to compare or promote competition between learners. Additionally, learning happens over time as people grow, so assessment can check for understanding in the middle of the learning process, or be a tool for demonstrating knowledge, skills, and insights gained over time.

Essentially, assessment is a storytelling tool, and a way for learners to set goals, track, reflect, and communicate on their personal learning journey. Assessment is a meaningful and organic part of the learning process: it helps the learner articulate “Here are the ways that I am growing,” and helps educators and learning facilitators describe “Here are the ways I see you growing.”

When we view learning in the ecosystem, there are multiple experiences and multiple stakeholders engaged in the process, including learners, peers, mentees, elders, educators, community partners, and family members. Assessment can equip young people and their families with shared language and feedback cycles, as a means to engage the community in a process that demonstrates shared values of storytelling, agency, relevance, collaboration, and creativity. Assessment of learning, for learning, as learning, becomes part of the fabric of the ecosystem. Demonstrations of learning are part of the community’s culture and done in communal spaces, so self-reflection and celebrating learning are community norms. It becomes a reason for gathering, for celebration, for uncovering blind spots, for deepening relationships, for a culture of continual learning.

Assessment is a way to ensure equity in the ecosystem by continually reviewing community goals for access, transparency, and outcomes. It’s not just a one-time event, but rather embedded throughout the ecosystem to encourage reflection in a variety of real-world contexts. The goal is to foster interconnectedness and mutual support within the ecosystem and provide tools for learners to reflect on their learning and identify the next steps in their journey. The design of assessment systems will vary depending on the needs of the community.

The ecosystem can offer the opportunity for structures where experts and elders within the larger community can share in the creation of established benchmarks that help the learner and learning teams have a point of reference for when to begin negotiating formal assessments. While we usually think of assessment as something an individual learner engages in, we can also assess groups of learners, communities, and entire ecosystems. For example, a community might engage in an annual equity audit to tell the story of its progress toward a more just ecosystem.

In the past, the industrial model of credentialing of learning was confined by inflexible policies and structures that measured seat time (physically sitting in your seat in a specific building for a prescribed amount of time) and limited credentialing of learning to singular subjects taught in standardized curriculum, given credibility by standardized tests. The conventional way of credentialing learning has led to educational inequities by sorting students and creating inflexible pathways that reduce learner competencies to single measures.

Credentialing of learning is a shorthand means of communicating that someone knows and can do something. “Credential” stems from the Latin word credere, meaning to believe or to trust. A credential can instill confidence that its holder is capable of doing certain things. A high school diploma and a college diploma, we are told, means that a person meets minimum requirements to participate in different areas of the workforce. Both a driver’s license and a license to practice medicine give us a certain assurance of safety: “This person can drive a car, observing basic traffic laws and safety protocols,” or “This person is sworn to (and was found competent by their professional peers to) help and do no harm in a medical setting.”

In a thriving ecosystem, credentialing becomes one of the many levers woven into the fabric and culture of the community. Here we explore some of the ways we might consider credentialing when learning can happen everywhere, when there are multiple means of communicating competencies, and when we consider credentialing as a means of bringing us closer to our goals of generating strong outcomes for individuals and communities, including connecting learners to life outcomes.

In this consideration, we offer four principles for credentialing of learning in an ecosystem:

When we imagine a learner-centered ecosystem, the community and world are the playground for learning—meaning where, when, and how credentials show up is more varied, spontaneous, and nuanced.

A thriving ecosystem has the ability to recognize a wide range of credentials that capture and communicate learning, skills, and knowledge. Presentations of learning and exhibitions where learners can share their learning, get feedback, and show documentation of their work are avenues for credentialing learning and providing notice of accomplishment and progress. Journals, creative expressions, dance, music, film, writing—all can provide avenues for demonstrating that a competency has been developed and demonstrated. In a learner-centered ecosystem, credentialing systems will ensure clarity of use, translatability, portability, and relevance.

Compared to the current state of credentialing, learner-centered ecosystems have a more expansive understanding of what credentials represent both to the person holding that credential and to the broader community. For example, there is often a mismatch between “workforce-ready” credentials like diplomas, and the competencies needed to succeed in a particular job. In a learner-centered ecosystem, employers can collaborate more closely with learners and learning hubs to design relevant credentials that set both learners and employers up for success. These may take the form of industry certifications, micro-credentials, badges, or less formalized recognitions of knowledge and skill. These are just a few examples of how credentialing in the ecosystem can allow for maximum autonomy for learners since they can track, promote, and continue to add to their unique credentials over time.

Credentials tell the story of what a learner can do and knows, and how they might build on the assets of their community. They may mark an important moment in the learner’s journey, or they may provide a reframing of existing knowledge and skills. Credentials can be formal or informal. They represent a celebration of the sharing of knowledge between a learner and their community. Credentials can give meaning to learning experiences and milestones. Their primary benefit is to the learner.

Ways of credentialing that fall outside of employment readiness or safety are equally important. For example, these may include important rites of passage and stature in a community, such as a ceremony recognizing a learner’s mastery of Hula culture, chants, and dance in Hawai’i; or the Jewish bar or bat mitzvah, which acknowledges a young person’s readiness to read sacred texts before the community.

When we consider credentialing of learning in the ecosystem, it is woven throughout the experience of each learner and also impacts the culture of the community that is engaged. Credentials are intentionally designed to reflect the ecosystem’s values. For example, stakeholders may articulate the ways that credentials have historically been used to marginalize certain groups of people and reinforce disparity in their community or ecosystem, and intentionally design credentialing systems with equity and justice in mind. Thus, it is important to view credentials from marginalized perspectives and consider how we use credentialing as a function that is designed to strengthen connections and create coherence and alignment toward desired outcomes, careers, and pathways.

The following two frameworks are designed to help us consider some of the challenges we face in shifting the way we think about and engage with assessment and credentialing of learning in the ecosystem. As ecosystems develop a vision for the functions of assessing and credentialing, they are likely to encounter a number of tensions and trade-offs. Choices will need to be made. Acknowledging and discussing these tensions and trade-offs is important for creating trust, transparency, and—when necessary—consistency and reliability.

There are incredible examples of how learner-centered leaders and others are already reimagining and implementing new ways of assessing and credentialing learning, within the K–12 space and well beyond. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of “glimmers of the future” to inspire new thinking, provide new starting points, and spark transformation.

To note, up until this point in the chapter, we have investigated assessing of learning and credentialing of learning as two distinct structures. While they are often merged in education conversations, we’ve acknowledged it is important to take them apart and understand how they each would operate and often intersect in a learner-centered ecosystem. However, when looking at examples already at play, we felt it was counterproductive to separate them out, as many of these examples provide insight into reimagined ways of structuring both assessment and credentialing of learning.