This isn’t about accountability. It’s about substituting a simple-minded short-cut for quality. When you have a test, you get teachers forced to teach to the test – meaning rote content instead of teaching how to think.
Testing. Either it’s a way of measuring how well a person has learned something or it’s not.
For all my educational life my assimilation of course material has been assessed via a “test”. Suitability for higher education as well as certain classes was determined by a standardized test or a pre-test.
Teachers, and the academic community as a whole, never thought tests were a bad thing then.
As a current job seeker I have taken several “tests” that are supposed to determine my suitability for certain jobs.
The question that comes to my mind is; why is that only now, when the teachers and school systems themselves are being assessed by these tests, are those same teachers now complaining that tests are not a good measure of what a student has learned. Smacks of hypocrisy to me.
“Teaching the test” is a somewhat ridiculous concept. Teaching the course material should prepare the student for the test. If the test isn’t a good measure of the course material presented than one or the other is flawed and needs to be adjusted.
When I taught at a Military Occupational Specialty School in the Marine Corps our Commanding Officer was of the opinion that, “If the student fails to learn, then the instructor failed to teach.” What the student had learned was determined by a “test”.
We didn’t teach the test, we taught the equipment - we developed lesson plans and coursework that ensured a thorough understanding of the equipment. If they understood the material, the “test” wasn’t a problem.
Joe, DrCanuck, allow me to elaborate. There are tests of thinking quality, but most of them are too labor-intensive to use in schools. Instead, they substitute simple-minded puzzles or regurgitated information quizzes. And that’s even ignoring the question that psychologists have been arguing for 90 years whether intelligence is one thing or many (my view), which does have a certain effect on your testing! There is also a question of just what exactly is seen as success in schools. School competency tests, which got going around the time I was in high school in the late seventies, emphasized basic skills like writing a check - not exactly sophisticated thinking abilities.
To your point, Joe, if you are testing specific knowledge of a specific set of equipment, then you can teach the equipment. But are schools only “teaching the equipment?” Not if you ask a school board. Most think you are teaching kids to be good citizens, to be leaders, to function in the real world, to reason, to know their history, and, oh yeah, get into college.
Good teachers don’t teach to the test, they teach information, promote conceptual understanding (knowing what the info means), and the ability to use both. Knowing the equipment, in fact, is a good example. Listing the parts is not the same thing as knowing how they fit together, let alone how they work in the field and why they are designed that way.
But you can’t teach kids “all the equipment” of science, math, history, English, foreign languages, etc. There’s too much. Good teachers teach core concepts and the ability to learn more, as well as a given set of information, which varies from teacher to teacher. But tests are limited in what they can ask, so that means the total scope of learning gets reduced to the things that show up on the test.
tests are ik, in that they test a student’s knowledge…however, when it comes to application of that knowledge in a practical, work-a-day fashon, how relevant are the tests? I hired a young man who graduated from carpenter school, head of the class…I fired him after one day because he couldn’t get it from his brain to his hand..I reiterate…tests are ok, but are not really relevant to the real world most of the time.
Teach the basics, show how they are applied to real world circumstance. My son is in a building class and it’s the first time he’s ever dealt with long division. He is amazed that I can add up long columns of numbers without a calculator because he was never required to memorize addition or multiplication tables.
Grammar and punctuation are simple and basic. Testing on how to diagram a sentence shouldn’t threaten any teacher - nor should reading comprehension
Science - the concepts are basic, teach those and how they apply to the world around us.
History and social studies are the dicey areas. There’s a TON of this that have happened so what the test covers would be good for the teacher to know, so I can see teaching the test concept applied there, but not 3-R’s.
DesertTruth about 14 years ago
Very sad, but right on the button.
Motivemagus about 14 years ago
This isn’t about accountability. It’s about substituting a simple-minded short-cut for quality. When you have a test, you get teachers forced to teach to the test – meaning rote content instead of teaching how to think.
treered about 14 years ago
Doc, hear about Texas textbooks recently? guess where president** “no child left behind” bush came from…
kennethcwarren64 about 14 years ago
The problem with education is that so many people want to have control over what children are taught, and don’t care how they learn.
Children are a born learning machines, that is how humans, and all animals survive, the young are always trying to learn how the world works.
What we should be doing is helping learn how to learn, but too many people want to control what they learn.
JoeRaisin about 14 years ago
Testing. Either it’s a way of measuring how well a person has learned something or it’s not.
For all my educational life my assimilation of course material has been assessed via a “test”. Suitability for higher education as well as certain classes was determined by a standardized test or a pre-test.
Teachers, and the academic community as a whole, never thought tests were a bad thing then.
As a current job seeker I have taken several “tests” that are supposed to determine my suitability for certain jobs.
The question that comes to my mind is; why is that only now, when the teachers and school systems themselves are being assessed by these tests, are those same teachers now complaining that tests are not a good measure of what a student has learned. Smacks of hypocrisy to me.
“Teaching the test” is a somewhat ridiculous concept. Teaching the course material should prepare the student for the test. If the test isn’t a good measure of the course material presented than one or the other is flawed and needs to be adjusted.
When I taught at a Military Occupational Specialty School in the Marine Corps our Commanding Officer was of the opinion that, “If the student fails to learn, then the instructor failed to teach.” What the student had learned was determined by a “test”.
We didn’t teach the test, we taught the equipment - we developed lesson plans and coursework that ensured a thorough understanding of the equipment. If they understood the material, the “test” wasn’t a problem.
Motivemagus about 14 years ago
Joe, DrCanuck, allow me to elaborate. There are tests of thinking quality, but most of them are too labor-intensive to use in schools. Instead, they substitute simple-minded puzzles or regurgitated information quizzes. And that’s even ignoring the question that psychologists have been arguing for 90 years whether intelligence is one thing or many (my view), which does have a certain effect on your testing! There is also a question of just what exactly is seen as success in schools. School competency tests, which got going around the time I was in high school in the late seventies, emphasized basic skills like writing a check - not exactly sophisticated thinking abilities. To your point, Joe, if you are testing specific knowledge of a specific set of equipment, then you can teach the equipment. But are schools only “teaching the equipment?” Not if you ask a school board. Most think you are teaching kids to be good citizens, to be leaders, to function in the real world, to reason, to know their history, and, oh yeah, get into college. Good teachers don’t teach to the test, they teach information, promote conceptual understanding (knowing what the info means), and the ability to use both. Knowing the equipment, in fact, is a good example. Listing the parts is not the same thing as knowing how they fit together, let alone how they work in the field and why they are designed that way. But you can’t teach kids “all the equipment” of science, math, history, English, foreign languages, etc. There’s too much. Good teachers teach core concepts and the ability to learn more, as well as a given set of information, which varies from teacher to teacher. But tests are limited in what they can ask, so that means the total scope of learning gets reduced to the things that show up on the test.
woodwork about 14 years ago
tests are ik, in that they test a student’s knowledge…however, when it comes to application of that knowledge in a practical, work-a-day fashon, how relevant are the tests? I hired a young man who graduated from carpenter school, head of the class…I fired him after one day because he couldn’t get it from his brain to his hand..I reiterate…tests are ok, but are not really relevant to the real world most of the time.
TruthfulTheocracy about 14 years ago
I agree señor furnituremaker. My cousin wonders why is she learning geometry if she is not going to use it.
JoeRaisin about 14 years ago
Teach the basics, show how they are applied to real world circumstance. My son is in a building class and it’s the first time he’s ever dealt with long division. He is amazed that I can add up long columns of numbers without a calculator because he was never required to memorize addition or multiplication tables.
Grammar and punctuation are simple and basic. Testing on how to diagram a sentence shouldn’t threaten any teacher - nor should reading comprehension
Science - the concepts are basic, teach those and how they apply to the world around us.
History and social studies are the dicey areas. There’s a TON of this that have happened so what the test covers would be good for the teacher to know, so I can see teaching the test concept applied there, but not 3-R’s.