"Is this going to be on the test?", is by far one of the most common questions asked in classrooms throughout America. One of my most revered and respected professors in college once said, "assessment drives learning", and I find that it is so true. Unless students are going to be held accountable for the material that is being covered in class, they simply aren't going to care to retain the knowledge that we as educators are trying to instill into the minds of our students.
As teachers, I think that many of us rely on the most traditional form of assessing student knowledge which is by giving them tests and quizzes. On these forms of assessments, you can often find questions like true/false and multiple choice - questions that aim at lower level thinking skills. I didn't realize this early on in my career until one day one of my colleagues pointed out to me that these questions weren't really doing the students any good. What in life, besides some menus at restaurants, are formatted similar to multiple choice or true/false questions? Out in the real world, bosses don't pop into their subordinates offices and ask them true/false questions, so then why do we as teachers ask our students these types of questions? In my mind, we shouldn't, particularly because each year, our student's ability to read and write appears to have a huge drop off. Therefore as much as students don't like it, and as time consuming as it is for us as teachers to read and grade their writing, we need to continue to build upon these critical skills. Things like text messaging and "iming" have ruined our students ability to read and write the proper way, so they desperately need to be broken of these habits - and the only way to do so is to make them accountable and write!
Lastly, I agree with UBD in that authentic assessments are a necessity. It challenges our students to "think outside the box" when we do things like projects instead of the traditional tests. It is also important to provide these students with a choice, because as well all know, everyone learns differently.
3 comments:
I hadn't thought about the true/false questions before. I usually do not give students true/false questions or even many multiple choice questions. I often find it difficult to see their process of thinking with these types of questions, and, as Ubd explains, unable to see the transferability. However, although my personal feeling is to eliminate multiple choice questions all together, I have been told that I must incorporate "test-taking strategies," which includes multiple choice questions, in my everyday teaching. Perhaps the only solution that satisfies both parties is to give multiple choice questions and then have the students explain why they chose that answer. Unfortunately the students do have to be exposed to these types of questions, since as we know it is on the state standardized tests. I truly believe that standardized tests (NJASK, SAT, ACT, etc.)do not measure what you know, as much as how well you can take a test. While I want my students to walk away from my class with knowledge, I also do not want them to go into a test without having been exposed to the type of questions asked. Many times, students have difficulty with the wording, not necessarily the math aspect of it.
Do you think by changing these certain styles of assessment in the classroom it could have a positive effect on students' abilities out of the classroom. For instance if you did hold a student accountable for using improper English because they wrote in the style of text messaging do you think the next time they sent a text message they would think about spelling the entire sentence out instead of writing - Cal me b4 u leave ur hous.
I agree with you that the way thath we assess students is probably not the most effective. However, it is what we are used to and moving away from that comfort zone can be a scary thing. As I mentioned in one of my other comments, I think that a big concern of teachers is that if we don't give the traditional quizes, tests, etc. then we won't have anything to prove our grades when the parents come to us to complain. Maybe the whole grading/report card system needs to be refreshed as well!
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