Hello Team,
Good Morning!
This week reading (Click Here to Read the Article!! ) is based on what we need to consider beyond TESTING, as we always think how we could make our nations more creative. We, as a mentor, teacher, educator or just as of friend of a 15 years old high school kid, it is very important to know what information we are giving to our scholars to be a successful learner. This article might give you a good insight into what you could ask your students to revisit beyond testing and to learn something new more in-depth. SO! JUST READ IT WHILE YOU ARE SURFING INTERNET!
To Know more, you have to read this popular article based on few white papers, research experiments and scholars interview.
I liked the following section:
"Standardized tests also have inherent problems. Nothing about them is standardized other than the scoring of them. Fallible humans write the questions, and sometimes the questions are poorly written. Fallible humans choose the "correct" answer, and the "correct" answer may be wrong. Wise children often choose the "wrong" answer because they thought too much or they knew too much. Sometimes, such tests don't have a "right" answer. There is also a risk in teaching masses of children that every problem has a right answer, and that it is their job to choose from one of four possible choices. This is a way to elicit low-level information. But the lessons that children learn from being subjected to standardized tests over many years are counter-productive to the spirit of learning."
Happy reading.
Feel free to share this thought with your peers and fellow mentors.
Thanks
Hasan
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ReplyDeleteThis was some interesting reading! Similar to the saying "it takes a community to raise a child", I feel that it takes a community to educate a child as well. Parents, families, friends, and anyone else involved in a child's life should actively promote different ways of learning other than just tests and homework. Teaching to a test has only given scholars a way to develop test taking skills, but it doesn't allow them to practice critical thinking, relationship building, and other aspects essential to learning and growing. It's important to provide enrichment to our students, not just academically but socially too. Peer Power works with scholars who all have the potential to be leaders (and even future success coaches) and if they can't learn more than what a standard system gives them, learning becomes stagnant and meaningless. As success coaches, I believe it is beneficial to not only drill scholars with test taking skills, but to help them relate content to real life and build connections that will inspire them to learn more and think "outside the box". I found it shocking that 260 million kids don't receive any kind of education. That's scary o.O
ReplyDeleteYes ! Agreed community engagement is important school development.
DeleteWhen schooling is effective, it "cures a host of societal ills. For individuals, it promotes employment, earnings, health, and poverty reduction. For societies, it spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion."
ReplyDeleteI absolutely adored this section and quote in the article. Last semester I took a phenominal American Government course and in the course we discussed in depth the issue of poverty. Through our research in the course we learned that education was the best course to take when we look at breaking the poverty cycle. The problem with standardized testing is that it is in fact too standardized. Students' minds are not standardized. A question that reads one way to one student will read a completely different way to another student. Both students may read the exact same question but interpret the it totally different. Our students are so diverse that it should make the most sense to diversify testing as well. The most rewarding part of being a success coach for me as been the realization of what clicks with students and how they learn concepts best, and then seeing their reaction when they learn the concept succesfully.
Hey Anna, I am glad that you liked this reading piece. feel free to share those thoughts with your co-teacher and other colleague. Thanks, Hasan.
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