Monday, January 30, 2012

study - The Fallacy of Teaching to the Test

study - The Fallacy of Teaching to the Test-Test

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Law, each state is required to set their own carrying out benchmarks and straight through a series of tests compare the academic improvement of all students to ensure accountability for the billions of dollars being invested within the American collective schooling system. One of the most repeated arguments is that this law or any accountability law mandates teachers to teach to the test and that teaching to the test is wrong.

Test

From a performance improvement perspective, teaching to the test is 100% as a matter of fact correct. One of the best examples is the thousands of citizens in every state study who study to pass the state's driving test to earn a driver's license. The state driver's test is to decree the applicant's knowledge of the laws pertaining to operating a motorized vehicle. Each demand on the test can be found within the approved state driver's manual. High schools to commercial driving schools instruct their students based upon the data within the manual. If these instructors did not teach to the data within their state manuals, their students would not pass the state's exam. These teachers must teach to the test.

The real problem arises when students who have not mastered previously taught concepts are forced to play "catch up" within a very short time frame. This is where, I believe, this fallacy of teaching to the test originated. This type of testing is as a matter of fact a symptom of a greater problem, lack of mastery.

During the last 5 years, I have surveyed over 500 teachers and 98% agreed that this is how studying works in the classroom:

  • Read It
  • Learn It
  • Test It
  • Forget It
  • Proceed to Next Lesson
  • Repeat Process

This process is all about the acquisition of knowledge and not truly about performance - the application of knowledge.

Performance comes in varied stages from wee to mastery. Within the American collective education, mastery, in all honesty, is not the desired end follow for many teachers and students. If mastery was the desired end result, we would not have teachers who are not very qualified, collective promotion along with the many other programs that reduce mastery for issues of self-esteem, etc. Nor would we continue to have an agrian school structure. Did you know that today's students spend less time in the classroom than students of 50 years ago even though data is doubling every year?

If we truly want to heighten collective education, which is one of the best explanations why America rose to be a super power, then we must revamp the structure of collective schooling to reflect a 21st Century carrying out driven society. In the meanwhile, collective schooling must begin to manufacture the desire for young citizen especially to come to be self-directed learners who demonstrate leadership skills by mastering key concepts essential for their success. This solution would seem much more logical; align to the desired end results; avoid the blame game; eliminate wasted tax dollars and get to the carrying out results in real time.

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