Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

In the book "Digital media, youth, and credibility" by Miriam J. Metzger and Andrew J. Flanagin, they discuss the impact of standardized testing in classrooms. Through their perspective the two main subjects of standardized testing are math and English, leaving other subjects neglected. The passing of "No Child Left Behind" is brought up as the beginning of the standardized testing phenomena.

"How Standardized Testing Damages Education," posted on, http://www.fairtest.org/facts/howharm.htm, the author talks about how Standardized testing in schools today is damaging to students. The article talks about how the tests are biased but schools are still using it as a measurement of whether the student is ready for school or if they can go to the next grade. They also talk about how the tests have an emotional affect on the students. If a student is not able to go to the next grade, because of a bad test score, it's going to have a negative emotional affect and not necessarily improve their knowledge capabilities.

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing in regards to how they believe that standardized testing has damaged our education system. They begin by discussing how school use the tests the determine if students are ready for school, track them once they are in school, and help to develop and guide our schools curriculum, even though they are incredibly biased and are limited in their ability to measure achievement or ability in the students whom they are testing. They continue by arguing that these tests are very inaccurate when it comes to determining if a student is ready for school because they are 'overly academic and developmentally inappropriate in primary schooling.'

COOOOOL article--loved it.

Standardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole. (Of course, on "The Late, Late Show," no one ever insists that the monster is really doing us a favor by making its victims more "accountable.") But let's put aside metaphors and even opinions for a moment so that we can review some indisputable facts on the subject.

In the chapter called "High-Stakes Testing," the author is talking about the role of standardized testing and bench marks in schools. Later goes on to also talk about the roles of teachers and how it effects them.

Rose Garrett writes an article called Is Standardized Testing Failing Our Kids? which is basically questioning the purpose for taking the test. It talks about how the test hurt the students who need the help the most and is adding a lot of pressure to both the students and the teachers. It states how teachers have to teach to the test instead of teaching in a way that will not end up on paper. This article says that we should have a different kind of testing that is called performance based assessments and it is based on the idea that kids should be evaluated on what they can do and not for the purpose to see how successful they are. It allows kids to be creative and to shoe us what they actually know instead of taking a test. It seems clear that a Standardized test only shows wheatear a student got the question right or wrong not how well they know the material or how well they can answer a question. The author states that until we can decided what we want kids to learn than it is hard to give them a test on things they may or may not know.

In the article "Debate: Not Child Left Behind" put together by "Debatepedia" the pros and cons of standardized testing resulting from the 'No Child Left Behind' Act are discussed.

The Great School Staff and its main focus in wrote testing in California on standardized testing in schools. The first part of this article talks about all the different kinds of test there are through out elementary school and high school. It examines how schools are given a target in which their student's scores should follow under. These targets are called API growth targets. After the testing is complete the schools will receive rankings comparing similar schools and also comparing schools within in state. It states that these test are mainly important for helping parents understand how well their child is learning, and also how well are schools preparing their students. The results of this test can affect the children, teachers and schools. I

The chapter "The Computer and Active Learning" from the book The Vitrual Classroom by Starr Hiltz really grasps the use of computers in the classroom. "Whether in CIA or in the Virtual Classroom, the student is forced to actively participate" this is one of the main ideas to this book and especially this chapter. Students who use the computer to learn are actively participating by answering questions after they are on the computer. The chapter also develops the idea that computer education works, but teacher and student communication is important, "it appears to be effective only if there is also significant communication between teacher and student". The article holds computer to a high standard by defining computer use as "an active learning situation", instead of taking a quiz later on what a student learned, they get to take a quiz right after they read it online. They response as they go, making computer use active learning. It also develops the idea of the computer as a social process; "this social process of developing shared understanding through interaction is the "natural" way for people to learn". The author believes that responding to peers work creates a process of learning that is never seen in the classroom. All of the ideas are great examples of why technology in the classroom works, and can be used to our advantage as teachers.

The Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College did a study based on the "Use, Support and Effect of Instructional Technology" otherwise known as USEIT, in 55 classrooms in nine Massachusetts school districts. They were trying to research if student usage of technology would affect their tests scores on standardized tests.

I found a short outline from presentation slides on The National Writing Project and it talks about the importance of using participatory media in schools. It has a lot of information about what teachers can do with the media along with some positive input from teachers themselves. It gives a few standards that need to be met by the teachers and then the response they are getting from incorporating those results.

This is not the link to the actual chapter, but a link about the book. I got the book from the library... In Chapter 8, Testing, Trying, and Teaching, John Bruer argues that standardized testing is not a fair way to test students. He mentions that putting a student into a percentile based on the score they get on a single test does not give a fair representation of the students learning and understanding of the material.