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"especially when measuring "learning" itself is very difficult if not impossible." That's ridiculous. Math, science, vocabulary, history, and reading comprehen

"especially when measuring "learning" itself is very difficult if not impossible." That's ridiculous. Math, science, vocabulary, history, and reading comprehension can all be tested effectively, with little risk of "gaming" it. (at least at the level of a tpyical high scholl curriculum)

HarryHirsch 9y ago
Especially high school math can be gamed effectively. For "word problems" you can drill students to look for keywords and they will arrive at the right result without understanding the problem. My wife teaches at a 4-year state school and tells me that one of her students did just that, she looked for plausible keywords but then didn't know what to do next, this was chemistry, not math. Reading comprehension is harder to game.
- yorwba 9y ago
  > you can drill students to look for keywords and they will arrive at the right result without understanding the problem > she looked for plausible keywords but then didn't know what to do next That doesn't sound like she arrived at the right result.
jcranmer 9y ago
Test-taking strategies are definitely possible without learning the material. Hunting for keywords is a common one; learning to recognize the kind of answers that show up as confounders is also pretty common. Even free response questions can be gamed, if you learn how to come up with plausible answers that can rack up partial credit. It is difficult to game your way to an A without knowing a fair amount of the material, but it's definitely possible to get a passing grade and possibly as high as a B. And students are often very eager to try to claw as much partial credit on a test as possible.
acjohnson55 9y ago
You might think that. But take it from a former teacher, it's actually very difficult assess learning. It's an entire field of study in itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_assessment
newfoundglory 9y ago
This comment is a fantastic example of not knowing enough to know how ignorant you are - to start with, you appear to be conflating “knowledge” with “learning”.

HarryHirsch 9y ago

Especially high school math can be gamed effectively. For "word problems" you can drill students to look for keywords and they will arrive at the right result without understanding the problem. My wife teaches at a 4-year state school and tells me that one of her students did just that, she looked for plausible keywords but then didn't know what to do next, this was chemistry, not math. Reading comprehension is harder to game.

yorwba 9y ago
> you can drill students to look for keywords and they will arrive at the right result without understanding the problem > she looked for plausible keywords but then didn't know what to do next That doesn't sound like she arrived at the right result.

jcranmer 9y ago

Test-taking strategies are definitely possible without learning the material. Hunting for keywords is a common one; learning to recognize the kind of answers that show up as confounders is also pretty common. Even free response questions can be gamed, if you learn how to come up with plausible answers that can rack up partial credit. It is difficult to game your way to an A without knowing a fair amount of the material, but it's definitely possible to get a passing grade and possibly as high as a B. And students are often very eager to try to claw as much partial credit on a test as possible.

acjohnson55 9y ago

You might think that. But take it from a former teacher, it's actually very difficult assess learning. It's an entire field of study in itself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_assessment

newfoundglory 9y ago

This comment is a fantastic example of not knowing enough to know how ignorant you are - to start with, you appear to be conflating “knowledge” with “learning”.