{"id":40,"date":"2015-05-14T05:51:05","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T05:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2015-05-22T04:28:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T04:28:03","slug":"why-do-we-test-the-way-that-we-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/?p=40","title":{"rendered":"Why do we test the way that we do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along those lines, I am challenging why we assess students the way that we do in education.\u00a0 For instance, why is it that we teach students a brand new concept and then expect them to master it immediately?\u00a0 Oh sure, we give them some practice, and maybe a few nights of homework, a class discussion, and possibly an investigation, but then we expect them to have it down.\u00a0 I mean, seriously, where in the world is that realistic?\u00a0 Oh, you want to be a doctor, OK, day 1, here is a heart in a cadaver, day 2, perform open heart surgery.\u00a0 Or what about sports?\u00a0 Do we expect a 5 year old at their first baseball practice to throw from center field to home plate?\u00a0 However, we expect to show a 5 year old words for the first time and then give them a reading test.\u00a0 The worst part of that test is that how we judge not only that child for years to come, but also the teacher.\u00a0 This seems like crazy logic to me!<\/p>\n

Quite a few years ago, I had this epiphany while teaching a sophomore Geometry class.\u00a0 Like the two years before, I taught chapter 1, then gave the chapter 1 test, moved to chapter 2, gave the chapter 2 test, and so on.\u00a0 Right after Christmas break, when students were organizing their notebooks, a student mused while looking over his dismal score of a 62% on his chapter 1 test, \u201cWhy did I miss all of these questions?\u00a0 These are so easy!\u00a0 Was I sick that day?\u201d\u00a0 So, I thought to myself, well of course you know it now, because Geometry builds on itself and we have been using that stuff from chapter 1 over and over.\u00a0 Is that student a \u2018D\u2019 student?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Instead, I changed the whole testing process.\u00a0 At the end of a chapter, I gave a practice test that the students scored themselves.\u00a0 I asked for feedback on what questions were missed and why and took those results forward into the upcoming instruction. However, I didn\u2019t give a formal test. If it was a concept I knew we would do a lot, then I just refocused the students when it showed up, or I added review while connecting to new ideas.\u00a0 Rather than teach chapter 1 and then test on it, I taught chapters 1, 2, and 3 then tested over chapter 1.\u00a0 Shockingly, the scores were amazing!\u00a0 Then I went even further to have a chapter 1 & 2 application project that students worked on and were given feedback on well before the chapter 1 test.\u00a0 The test scores got even higher.\u00a0 The only bummer was the very end of the year \u2013 because I couldn\u2019t follow them into summer, but I tried to compact some things so that there were more application projects in the last few weeks to really practice the material.\u00a0 It would have been a perfect system if I could let that last test go and move it to the next year, but, that was a pipe dream\u2026<\/p>\n

Over time, I gave that practice of \u201cletting the test wait\u201d up.\u00a0 I cashed it in for taking a pre-test, scoring it yourself, then taking the \u201creal\u201d test.\u00a0 I then allowed students to re-take tests on the material until mastery was shown.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even sure why I changed back to the archaic system of learn, test, learn, test.\u00a0 It probably had to do with district made finals and benchmarks \u2013 or assessments being out of my control.\u00a0 Our system just promotes failure, not true learning.\u00a0 We ask children to take academic risks, but then punish them for actually doing it.\u00a0 Everything has to be right now.\u00a0 Learn this now, master this now, because we have to hurry, hurry, hurry.\u00a0 For what exactly??\u00a0 And we wonder why so many students don\u2019t like school\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"