Are you tired of testing your students? Would you like to teach, instead of test?
Stephanie
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About Me
- Stephanie J Griffin
- MSEd in Library Media. AA @ MTC with honors. Bachelors of Science in Education, Jacksonville State University. A total of 277 credit hours. I love teaching! I also love to travel! I lived in Germany for 15 years. I've been to 22 countries in the world which includes Namibia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, & Brazil. My next trip will be to Costa Rica. I must see a tropical rain forest! I'm from the midwest, to be exact, Nebraska, I'm a cornhusker! Hobbies: Scuba diving, collecting antique lithographs and books, nature - bird watching.
Globalization
8 comments:
Love your url!
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/alagbtb.htm
What if we emphasized critical thinking rather than standardized testing?
Testing is necessary to gauge a students mastery of information presented to them. With 30 students and 1 teacher I don't see how you can know 100% of the time the skills that each student is mastering. Tests are vital to the school environment. It also helps keep teachers accountable. I want to know that my childs teacher has to teach certain curriculum and that my child is mastering it.
The issue of accountability and standardized testing is of special interest to classroom teachers who dislike the idea of having to "teach to the test" to help raise student test scores and meet AYP requirements. Many teachers find that the steady stream of standardized tests is taking too much time away from classroom instruction, undermining their efforts to provide a developmentally appropriate program that meets the needs of all students and truly helps them to learn. Increased accountablility is putting a greater strain on teachers and school admin; consequently, schools in some cases are losing good teachers. Having to follow scripted lesson plans/programs that do not give teachers the flexibility that they need to teach and to motivate children to learn is also a growing concern. Because requirements and challenges of NCLB Act, many teachers are being robbed of the personal satisfaction and enjoyment that they get from teaching. Children too are feeling the add pressure of NCLB's blanket approach to achieving higher academic performance.
ACEI Childhood Education Infancy through Early Adolescence. Winter 2006/07 Vol. 83 No. 2
You can find more information NCLB: Time to Reevaluate
These are interesting POV's from professionals educators. This was an issue 2001 and 5 years later....
LETTERS - Letter to the Editor
School Administrator, March, 2001
Peter Sacks has written an enlightening article in the December 2000 issue ("Predictable Losers in Testing Schemes") on the downfalls of standardized tests.
His anecdote about the mother in Boise, Idaho, is especially poignant. She has a son who could pass the tests, yet she feels that he learns very little in school.
In my teaching practice, I have run into many of the same type of students. They get good marks, but I really question if they are actually learning anything. The message is that standardized tests are not the be-all and end-all of assessment.
Raising Standards or Raising Barriers? Inequality and High Stakes Testing in Public Education, is similarly aimed at educating policymakers, educators and the wider public. In the absence of such widespread understanding and action based upon it, many policymakers will continue to assert that high-stakes decisions for students, educators and schools should be based largely or exclusively on the results of a standardized test. This will greatly exacerbate our nation's existing educational inequalities.
Stephanie: You have done a great job with you url! Keep it up!
I think that there is too much emphasis on standardized testing and that too much time is used in the classroom for these, depriving the students of the time needed to actually learn the basics for preparation at the next level. Besides, there are too many teachers that teach to these tests which isn't fair to the other students who are taking the same test. I disagree with the NCLB program for it places too much stress on some students along with the teachers.
Retired mathematics teacher from Nebraska.
Marcee Muller
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