Here's a test for you. Do you think kids have too many tests to take these days....?
When you were a kid, you would have answered with an indisputable Yes. But with the distance of what adults like to call maturity, how do you feel now? Some educators strongly agree with the patented complaint, "Teaching for the test is bad teaching." Lately, however, other educators have a bold new answer to go with this complaint. Their pedagogical pitch is, replace end-of-course tests with week-to-week computerized assessments.
Here's an open secret. Educators have been arguing like this about education ever since the first school opened in that first village hut. Simply because -- like scientists can't really explain electricity -- educators can't really explain learning.
The best definition I've heard is: "All learning is an individual act of self discovery."
Naturally, that's open to argument too. Just listen in to the teacher's lounge in your local school buildings where it's ego against ego, degree against degree. And now with this assessing versus testing theory, these lounges could really turn ugly.
No prediction here, just a bet.The very first argument will be over the question: "Just because we have the computers to continually assess, is that automatically a reason to do it?" Hmmm, exactly the same question folks battled over when it came to the wheel, the printing press, the telephone, radio, television, space shuttles and rap music.
All pretty profound ideological questions. Except maybe that last one, where the very first rap song usually answers its own question!
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To be quite honest, in all my years in school, I must admit that probably at least 50% or more of my tests were "crammed for". Which means I forgot the material right after I took the tests. So I guess to "to test or not to test" is an individualized question for each student....I guess it's more important if they RETAIN the material....but how will we ever know that????? Some educators should work on a test for that!
ReplyDeleteAhhh, spoken wisely! Retention is always the final name of the education game. A game that continues to confound educators and students alike. My own experience suggests we retain what we find relevant to us....so teaching subject matter in a relevant way is the best way. Teachers who can help students SEE THE RELEVANCE can make anything from the arcane War of 1812 to the sterility of diagramming a sentence worth remembering!
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