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Standardized tests stunt the curriculum, forcing an inflexible notion of what is worth knowing onto students. How, for example, do you have a standardized test
by DrSprout 17y ago
Standardized tests stunt the curriculum, forcing an inflexible notion of what is worth knowing onto students. How, for example, do you have a standardized test to judge undergraduate research? Doing something absolutely absurd based on a fundamentally untrue proposition, so long as you put a lot of effort and thought into it, is an essential part of the academic endeavor. (The key of course being that there is no such thing as a fundamentally untrue proposition, and one can start with a premise generally believed false to produce a useful result which proves the premise true.)
Peer review and student evaluations together give a much better picture of a professor's ability, and recognize that professor's ability to truly challenge students, not merely parroting the general wisdom. Obviously, there are inviolable facts, and it's important to recognize them - but learning is more than understanding that which is generally accepted to be true.
- yummyfajitas 17y agoStandardized tests don't stunt the curriculum, they merely define it. They force an "inflexible notion of what is worth knowing" only as much as a syllabus does. For example, I'm forced to teach eigenvalues, but I don't get to teach about linear programming, even though I think linear programming is well worth knowing. That's because eigenvalues are on the syllabus, but not linear programming. This would not change if someone else, rather than me, designed my final exam. All standardization does is give you a mechanism for comparing my students to yours. Obviously you don't use a standardized test for research credits. But you do use it for already known material taught in class. In fact, many graduate schools do exactly this - the standardized exams are called "written qualifying exams."