I am sitting at my desk here at work supervising my students do the last part of their Year 7 state literacy test. I thought I would jump on and check my email and see what people have been saying about the latest Podcast. I am amazed how many people just email instead of post a comment on the blog. Not quite sure why that is. Anyway I received an interesting message from a student teacher who graduates at the end of this year. He was very keen to hear some further thoughts on my blog project and Podcast project in the classroom. While I was replying it made me realise how much of a great collaboration tool this technology is. If my ramblings can be of any help to teachers or those training to be teachers then this has been all worth it.
So I move onto assessment…. As I sit here and watch these kids struggle through this test I am realising how little benefit it all is for them. In actual fact a colleague mentioned to me this morning that he felt that it was just a way for the government to advertise that a large number of 7th grade students in our state were meeting the benchmarks. (What ever they may be?!?!?!)
What I fail to understand is the lack of true learning that this test is evaluating. The tasks are comprehension activities (multiple choice – or as my kids call them – Multi guess), spelling and a writing task. Many of which are irrelevant to their world. Many schools prep the kids for these tests so that their school looks good out their in the education market. This bugs me as it has nothing to do with the quality of instruction. My students learnt the most useful and beneficial skills during the blogging project and the class Podcast. They are expressing, justifying, analysing, synthesising and most importantly thinking for themselves. There is critical literacy at work and the students are engaged in the learning process. This test tells me if they can spell a few words – Many of which I haven’t heard used in conversation (written or spoken) for some time. I am all for comprehension skills being developed but reading a story and answering questions is not the best way to asses it. Think about this one – students read a novel which has a number of interesting issues in it. They are then asked to blog about those issues over a period of time, answering questions and posing new thoughts. Throughout this exercise I as the teacher have the opportunity to see if they not only understand what happened in the book but see if it has impacted their learning and made them thinking about real life issues that affect them. With a bit of effort from the teacher in formulating good questions that provoke thinking, students will engage and learn in a way that impacts their world. Once again we integrate the learner not what the “bureaucratic suits” that think they know what students should know.
Oh and these tests have no way of assessing technological skills!! Hmm and my state government is calling itself the “Smart State”
Does this raise more QUESTIONS?!?!?!??! I am interested to hear your thoughts.