Assessment for Collective Intelligence: How RM Compare Prepares Learners for Tomorrow's Challenges

What if the most important thing we assess in schools isn't what students know individually, but how well they can think, learn, and solve problems together?

In October 2025, UNESCO published groundbreaking research by Dr Imogen Casebourne and Professor Rupert Wegerif on "AI and Education for collective intelligence: A futures perspective". Their work challenges a fundamental assumption embedded in most education systems: that assessment should primarily measure individual achievement. Instead, they argue that preparing students for an uncertain future requires teaching and assessing the capacity for collective intelligence: the ability of groups to think, learn, and solve problems together in ways that exceed what any individual could accomplish alone.

This isn't abstract theory. From climate change to public health crises, from economic instability to technological disruption, the challenges facing today's young people have no single cause and no individual solution. They require diverse groups working together, combining dialogue, collaboration, and critical reflection. Yet our assessment systems remain stubbornly focused on isolating and ranking individual performance.

RM Compare offers a different path—one that aligns surprisingly well with this collective intelligence vision while addressing the practical realities of school assessment.

The Problem with Traditional Assessment

Traditional assessment methods - individual exams, standardised tests, isolated marking- were designed for a different era. They focus on knowledge transfer and reproduction, which can produce strong individual exam results but leave learners lacking crucial skills: negotiation, co-creation, and the ability to collaborate across academic disciplines or cultures.

The UNESCO research highlights a critical gap: while generative AI initiatives in education often emphasise adaptive personalised tutoring or automated grading to help students gain traditional skills more efficiently, these approaches "will not necessarily foster collective intelligence". Put another way, making individual learning more efficient doesn't prepare students to think and work effectively with others at scale.

Comparative Judgement as Collective Intelligence in Action

Here's where RM Compare's methodology becomes fascinating. At its core, Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) is itself a form of collective intelligence. Rather than relying on a single marker's interpretation of fixed criteria, ACJ aggregates judgements from multiple assessors comparing work holistically. This collective, multi-assessor approach creates professional consensus that is typically more reliable than individual marking.

But the collective intelligence benefits extend far beyond reliability.

Building Dialogic Communities of Practice

The UNESCO research emphasises that "dialogue can be seen as key to collective intelligence" not just talking, but a process of posing questions, listening, challenging assumptions, and refining ideas by interacting with multiple perspectives. When teachers use RM Compare for collaborative moderation sessions, they engage in exactly this kind of dialogue.​

Teachers from different schools and contexts compare student work, discussing what constitutes quality, negotiating meaning, and co-constructing understanding. This breaks down the silos that traditionally isolate teachers and creates what the curriculum calls a "shared dialogic space". Research confirms that teachers exposed to work beyond their own students' portfolios reconsidered their classroom practices and refined how they articulated success criteria ultimately benefitting their pupils.

Transparency and Trust in Assessment

One of UNESCO's key recommendations is that AI-supported collective intelligence systems must maintain transparency to build trust. RM Compare addresses this through its reporting features, which allow teachers and students to see how consensus emerges from multiple judgements, where disagreement exists, and how different assessors interpret quality.​

This transparency is crucial. When students participate in peer assessment using ACJ, they don't just receive a grade, they see a diversity of perspectives on what makes work successful. Research shows this helps students internalise assessment criteria and form "a construct of quality of performance", skills essential for participating in larger collective intelligence projects.

Valuing Diversity While Building Consensus

The UNESCO research warns of a critical risk: if collective intelligence tools prompt too much alignment, they may reduce the productive diversity essential to innovation. Recent studies confirm that when individuals draw on the same AI systems for inspiration, they generate similar ideas, losing the collective benefits of disparate thinking.​

RM Compare's design naturally mitigates this risk. The comparative judgement process doesn't impose predetermined criteria or standardised responses. Instead, it honours the diversity of approaches students take to open-ended tasks while building consensus on relative quality. Assessors can record comments explaining their reasoning, surface dissenting judgments, and value originality, all features that preserve the diversity UNESCO identifies as essential.

From Individual Assessment to Collective Learning

The most exciting possibility lies in expanding how we use RM Compare. The UNESCO research advocates for project-based learning where students work in groups on real-world problems - investigating water quality, analysing climate data, proposing local solutions - cultivating deeper knowledge while practicing communication, conflict resolution, and iterative refinement.

RM Compare can be the assessment mechanism for these collaborative projects. Imagine:

• Cross-school collaborative projects where students from multiple schools work together on shared challenges, with RM Compare providing the framework for peer review and collective evaluation of group outputs​
• Dialogic peer assessment where students compare each other's work and must articulate their reasoning, developing the questioning and interpretive skills central to collective intelligence​
• Multi-stakeholder assessment where teachers, students, and even community members participate as judges, bringing diverse perspectives to bear on complex, authentic work​
• Process-oriented evaluation that assesses not just final products but the collaborative journey - how groups negotiated roles, resolved conflicts, integrated diverse viewpoints​

Preparing for Uncertainty

The Curriculum and Assessment Review in England signals the most significant renewal in decades. Wales has already embarked on this transformation. These reforms share a recognition: education must prepare young people not for a stable, predictable future but for one characterised by complexity and uncertainty.

The UNESCO research concludes: "Collective intelligence, supported by AI, as one goal of education, offers a vision for a future education system that teaches not only 'what' but also 'how' to negotiate meaning, co-construct solutions, and cultivate shared understanding across difference".​

RM Compare stands at this intersection, a proven assessment tool that can evolve to support both individual achievement and the collective intelligence competencies our students desperately need. The infrastructure exists. The methodology is sound. The research base is growing.

Looking Forward

This transformation won't happen automatically. It requires professional development that balances facility with technology and comfort with collective intelligence-aligned learning processes. It requires policy frameworks that value collaboration and open-ended projects as much as conventional test scores. It requires teachers willing to experiment, reflect, and co-create new approaches.​

But the opportunity is profound. By positioning RM Compare not merely as a more efficient alternative to marking, but as a platform for dialogic, collective assessment and learning, we can help schools measure what they truly treasure: students' capacity to think and work together effectively in an uncertain world.

The future belongs to those who can learn together. RM Compare can help us get there.

Want to explore how RM Compare might support collective intelligence in your school or trust? Reach out to discuss how collaborative assessment can transform your practice.