Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Standardized Testing
RightWingProf is on a roll.
Yes, I agree with him on this post. Standardized testing can be done poorly, but it can also be done well. Complaining about testing itself sounds more like a political than an academic/intellectual exercise.
I would have more faith in testing if we did testing at the beginning of school as assessment and then at the end of the year, rather that three quarters of the way through, to assess that actual improvement made. As it is, we are teaching test taking skills, regurgitative learning and not much else. We would be better served by going back to the old ITBS and teaching curriculum based on subjects and not social goals.
"I would have more faith in testing if we did testing at the beginning of school as assessment and then at the end of the year"
Why at the beginning? I mean, if you did exams like we do at the university and we used to do in high school, a midterm halfway through and an exam at the end, what would be the difference between the final from the year before and the test at the beginning of the year?
Test at the beginning to see what they already know, teach at the end to find out what they have learned. Then you have a true measure of what has taken place in the classroom. If you don't do that, then it's simply a game played by politicians.
3 comments:
I would have more faith in testing if we did testing at the beginning of school as assessment and then at the end of the year, rather that three quarters of the way through, to assess that actual improvement made. As it is, we are teaching test taking skills, regurgitative learning and not much else. We would be better served by going back to the old ITBS and teaching curriculum based on subjects and not social goals.
"I would have more faith in testing if we did testing at the beginning of school as assessment and then at the end of the year"
Why at the beginning? I mean, if you did exams like we do at the university and we used to do in high school, a midterm halfway through and an exam at the end, what would be the difference between the final from the year before and the test at the beginning of the year?
Just asking, by the way.
Test at the beginning to see what they already know, teach at the end to find out what they have learned. Then you have a true measure of what has taken place in the classroom. If you don't do that, then it's simply a game played by politicians.
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