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The problem is (at least) three-fold. One: The tail wags the dog. Since No Child Left Behind, schools have had one major metric: test scores. They have now g
by yanowitz 16y ago
The problem is (at least) three-fold.
One: The tail wags the dog. Since No Child Left Behind, schools have had one major metric: test scores. They have now geared everything else towards making test scores improve, from curriculum to teaching how to take a test. So the test drives all.
Two: Tests are not necessarily a great way to assess mastery of material. The fact that teaching test-taking strategies can dramatically improve scores (independent of underlying domain knowledge) is one example of testing's weaknesses.
Three: Tests are not a good way to construct ideal curriculum. They, of necessity, have to be far more limited in scope than what we (should) want to educate people on.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoThe fact that teaching test-taking strategies can dramatically improve scores (independent of underlying domain knowledge) is one example of testing's weaknesses. If you give this training to everyone (note: it doesn't take that much time), everyone receives the dramatic improvement due to test-strategy education, and test scores become comparable again. Tests [...], of necessity, have to be far more limited in scope than what we (should) want to educate people on. Please explain. Is the concern simply that tests are only a statistically representative sampling of things the student should know, rather than the actual knowledge? That's true. Similarly, a map of America isn't actually America. Doesn't mean it isn't useful.
- madcaptenor 16y agoIt's not just a sampling, though. Tests have to be constructed to fit within a single class period -- usually an hour or an hour and a half -- and as a result you can't really ask students to do any single problem that would take more than maybe twenty minutes. Unfortunately, most things in life take longer than twenty minutes.