Submitted by Judy M. Austin (not verified) on April 3, 2008 - 16:51.
I share some of these same concerns. Here is what I feel is happening in my own classroom: As my focus is shifted to test scores (End of Course tests, the High School Graduation Tests, the Advanced Placement test, and -- coming next year -- common benchmark tests), I can feel my emphasis shifting from teaching active reading and from cultivating a community of writers to what is specificially tested. My struggle involves this disconnect: I believe that the skills we teach in high school English classes are the life skills of reading, thinking, writing, research, thinking (Yes, thinking primarily!). How does that translate to a standardized test? How does that translate to our standardized tests that seem to more often involve testing on a computer than pencil and paper? If I work with my students to help them move to a higher level of reading, I work with active reading skills: annotating, summarizing, questioning the text. These habits of mind do not translate well to the format of the test: the computer screen. On that test, the students tend to do a cursory "quick read" and then guess what seems to be a reasonable answer. There is no "wrestling" with text that we want astute readers to be able to do. If we work together to improve voice and style and diction and support in writing, how well does that translate to selecting a multiple choice answer on a standardized test? At times, I have the feeling that we may lose the heart and soul of education: the development of the whole person, a thinking, questioning person who can seek out truth on his own. In his place may be a surface level reader who guesses well on multiple choice tests and who can select the right answer ABOUT writing-- but who in reality may not have the life skills of reading and writing that he needs.
Student-performance data misses important outcomes
Submitted by Judy M. Austin (not verified) on April 3, 2008 - 16:51.
I share some of these same concerns. Here is what I feel is happening in my own classroom: As my focus is shifted to test scores (End of Course tests, the High School Graduation Tests, the Advanced Placement test, and -- coming next year -- common benchmark tests), I can feel my emphasis shifting from teaching active reading and from cultivating a community of writers to what is specificially tested. My struggle involves this disconnect: I believe that the skills we teach in high school English classes are the life skills of reading, thinking, writing, research, thinking (Yes, thinking primarily!). How does that translate to a standardized test? How does that translate to our standardized tests that seem to more often involve testing on a computer than pencil and paper? If I work with my students to help them move to a higher level of reading, I work with active reading skills: annotating, summarizing, questioning the text. These habits of mind do not translate well to the format of the test: the computer screen. On that test, the students tend to do a cursory "quick read" and then guess what seems to be a reasonable answer. There is no "wrestling" with text that we want astute readers to be able to do. If we work together to improve voice and style and diction and support in writing, how well does that translate to selecting a multiple choice answer on a standardized test? At times, I have the feeling that we may lose the heart and soul of education: the development of the whole person, a thinking, questioning person who can seek out truth on his own. In his place may be a surface level reader who guesses well on multiple choice tests and who can select the right answer ABOUT writing-- but who in reality may not have the life skills of reading and writing that he needs.