"High Stanadards" from John Spencer
Tweet
These are few thoughts of "high Stanadards" from John Spencer, US blogger.
Often, the proponents of the drill-and-kill testing environment hold up the banner of "high standards" as a rationale for excessive testing. I disagree with this premise entirely. Here are ten reasons most tests lead to lower standards:
Extrinsic Motivation: Kids will work hard to learn, because they are naturally curious. When we replace this with an extrinsic motivation, it moves to economic norms, where they learn to do the least possible work for the highest results. A kid learns that it's okay to do a half-ass job if a D is still passing. Similarly, high achievers are often allowed to skate by complacently with good scores. That kind of mentality isn't present if a student is excited about learning.
Cramming: If I ask a student to learn something today and expect that student to remember tomorrow, a month from now and at the end of the year, the student will probably remember it. However, ask the same student to learn the information for the test on Thursday and it becomes easy to cram and forget.
Time Is Wasted: I visited a campus on Friday, figuring I might see some time-wasters. Maybe a crossword puzzle for good behavior or PAT time. Instead, as I walked through the halls, I saw entire grade levels of students silently taking a test on information that could have been assessed in an ongoing way throughout the week. I've written about this before. My students spend seven weeks (almost a quarter) of the year taking tests. The test is longer than the Bar Exam or the MCATs. It's insane.
Low-Level Thinking: Most tests are multiple choice. These tests, by design, do not assess what a student knows. Instead, they test what a student fails to recognize if he or she isn't guessing correctly. True assessment requires deeper critical thinking and avoids sloppy guesswork.
Slow Feedback: Students should be able to have instant feedback regarding how well they did. However, in an effort to avoid cheating, most students are not allowed to self-grade and reflect upon their learning. It can be a week or two before they get a test back. The best kind of assessment is the type that allows a student to think about his or her learning in order to adjust as a result.
Excuse for Avoiding Formative Assessment: I am shocked when a teacher says, "They did poorly on the pretest and now I'm shocked that they bombed the test." Really? How does that happen that a teacher can't figure out if a student is mastering a standard?
The Bell Curve and Other Deflators: I remember being a student and hoping that the whole class bombed the test, because low scores along around meant the teacher would curve it and I would receive a B instead of a C.
The Wrong Feedback: Tests typically focus on an overall grade rather than the mastery of a standard. Thus, there are two things vying for a student's attention: the grade and the learning. Often a student doesn't get to retake a test or find a different method to demonstrate mastery. Meanwhile, the qualitative, customized feedback is often missing from this type of assessment. And yet, it is this customized feedback that leads to higher standards of learning.
Risk Aversion: Learning involves taking risks. You can't have high standards without a certain level of risk-taking. Most tests are designed to not only discourage failure but encourage a certain fear of failure.
Complacent Teaching: If we say that a multiple-choice test is our only method of testing, we send the message that different learning styles and preferences make no difference. It becomes totally acceptable to move away from the notion of no child being left behind and instead pushing all students into the same myopic view of success. In the process, teachers have the permission to ignore the "lower level" students and focus on those who are "on the bubble." We're watering down our professional standard in the name of higher standards.
Abolishing Homework: Practical Thoughts
Or Maybe We'll Just Jam . . .
These are few thoughts of "high Stanadards" from John Spencer, US blogger.
Often, the proponents of the drill-and-kill testing environment hold up the banner of "high standards" as a rationale for excessive testing. I disagree with this premise entirely. Here are ten reasons most tests lead to lower standards:
Cramming: If I ask a student to learn something today and expect that student to remember tomorrow, a month from now and at the end of the year, the student will probably remember it. However, ask the same student to learn the information for the test on Thursday and it becomes easy to cram and forget.
Time Is Wasted: I visited a campus on Friday, figuring I might see some time-wasters. Maybe a crossword puzzle for good behavior or PAT time. Instead, as I walked through the halls, I saw entire grade levels of students silently taking a test on information that could have been assessed in an ongoing way throughout the week. I've written about this before. My students spend seven weeks (almost a quarter) of the year taking tests. The test is longer than the Bar Exam or the MCATs. It's insane.
Low-Level Thinking: Most tests are multiple choice. These tests, by design, do not assess what a student knows. Instead, they test what a student fails to recognize if he or she isn't guessing correctly. True assessment requires deeper critical thinking and avoids sloppy guesswork.
Slow Feedback: Students should be able to have instant feedback regarding how well they did. However, in an effort to avoid cheating, most students are not allowed to self-grade and reflect upon their learning. It can be a week or two before they get a test back. The best kind of assessment is the type that allows a student to think about his or her learning in order to adjust as a result.
Excuse for Avoiding Formative Assessment: I am shocked when a teacher says, "They did poorly on the pretest and now I'm shocked that they bombed the test." Really? How does that happen that a teacher can't figure out if a student is mastering a standard?
The Bell Curve and Other Deflators: I remember being a student and hoping that the whole class bombed the test, because low scores along around meant the teacher would curve it and I would receive a B instead of a C.
The Wrong Feedback: Tests typically focus on an overall grade rather than the mastery of a standard. Thus, there are two things vying for a student's attention: the grade and the learning. Often a student doesn't get to retake a test or find a different method to demonstrate mastery. Meanwhile, the qualitative, customized feedback is often missing from this type of assessment. And yet, it is this customized feedback that leads to higher standards of learning.
Risk Aversion: Learning involves taking risks. You can't have high standards without a certain level of risk-taking. Most tests are designed to not only discourage failure but encourage a certain fear of failure.
Complacent Teaching: If we say that a multiple-choice test is our only method of testing, we send the message that different learning styles and preferences make no difference. It becomes totally acceptable to move away from the notion of no child being left behind and instead pushing all students into the same myopic view of success. In the process, teachers have the permission to ignore the "lower level" students and focus on those who are "on the bubble." We're watering down our professional standard in the name of higher standards.
Further posts from John
The Real WorldAbolishing Homework: Practical Thoughts
Or Maybe We'll Just Jam . . .
Wearing two hats
Tweet
by Pinelopi Zaka (pinelopi.zaka@gmail.com, @paz11uc)
by Pinelopi Zaka (pinelopi.zaka@gmail.com, @paz11uc)
With the beginning of the new school year down under, teachers set their own new goals and many decide to apply some new strategies. For some this might involve using ICT and perhaps trying out blended online approaches that combine both online and face-to-face teaching and learning. In New Zealand and worldwide blended education is a fast developing area that is expected to continue growing, especially in kiwi schools with the rollout of UFB. This is an exciting opportunity to experiment with new tools and approaches, but also to motivate teachers to take one step further and investigate how they and their students experience the whole process, through research. Here are some of the reasons:
- Knowing yourself! Through the process of researching your own class you wear two hats – that of the teacher and that of the researcher. This twofold role helps you to continuously self-reflect on what you are doing as a teacher and why you are doing it.
- Knowing your students! Similarly to knowing yourself, through research you investigate your context in a more systematic way. You collect and analyse your data from your students, either through interviews, surveys or observations in a thoroughly designed way, preferably informed by the literature and other studies looking into similar topics.
- Improving your teaching! While you research your class you collect lots of evidence regarding the success or not of your approaches. It is an ongoing process where, at any stage, you can adapt your practices, change your approaches, use different tools or do anything else that you think might improve your students’ experience.
- Sharing your results and your learning journey! Nobody can deny how great the feeling of sharing is. Learning about what other teachers did, how they did it and what the results were is always interesting for educators who want to improve students’ learning experiences. A presentation at your school’s staffroom, a poster at a conference, or even better a published article in a research journal, are a few ways to communicate your class story to inspire others and contribute to the body of knowledge for the improvement of teaching and learning. Even if you think that your results are not that impressive, the learning journey you went through and your growth as a teacher is something that is definitely worth sharing!
Resources:
- Photo by Jonathan_W
- Educators sharing their stories through the CORE Education community
- Educators publishing their research in Computers in New Zealand Schools: Learning, Teaching, Technology
- New Zealand Council for Educational Research
- Enabling e-Learning - Research and Readings
- Riel, M. (2010). Understanding Action Research, Center For Collaborative Action Research. Pepperdine University
Heroes for youth
George Lucas is famously famous for Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And rightly so. But it is refreshing to hear him discussing something quite different. Or rather not that different as you’ll hear if you play the video above.
As schools head back in New Zealand I am beginning to wonder the importance of encouraging the youth of our nation in the best way I know how – One class at a time.
Tweet
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)