Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The effects of standardized tests on students
The effects of standardized tests on students
The truth about standardized tests
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The effects of standardized tests on students
Scherer’s view that excessive use of standardised testing can have a detrimental effect on quality teaching and learning holds considerable merit.
As long as the public looks at standardised testing results as a key indicator of a school’s performance, pressure on the entire school community will steadily increase.
The accountability demands of achieving favourable standardised testing results coupled with an already complex classroom environment will continue to challenge teachers’ beliefs and values about what promotes quality student learning.
Scherer holds the view that although standardised testing may have a valuable place in our schools, we also need to incorporate additional quality assessment measures.
5 key ideas that represent Quality Assessment:
1. Clear Purpose
The first step in any assessment is to determine the purpose of the assessment. Why are you doing it and what do you hope to gain from it? “Knowing the reason for assessment is crucial because this will determine what form the assessment will take, what is should look like, how it will be administered and how the results will be used.” (McMillan, 2011)
2.Teachers Subject Knowledge
To successfully assess learning, a teacher needs to have deep knowledge of the subject matter. The teacher must understand fundamental concepts and principles that define the subject. (Killen, 2005) Without this solid base knowledge, quality teaching and assessment simply cannot occur.
3.Assessment Methods Used
When a teacher has determined what they want students to understand and be able to do as a result of the teaching activity, they can decided on the methods they will use to assess the level of understanding. Pre Assessment will provide insight into students’ prior knowledge and will assist with lesson planning. Formative Assessment will gauge student progress and is vital for achieving learning targets. Summative Assessment will determine how well students have mastered instruction.
4.Clear Outcomes
A clear outcome is fundamental for quality assessment. The desired outcomes or learning goals provide the foundation for improving knowledge. A teacher and students need to have a clear understanding of learning goals, how to achieve them and how to tell when they have done so.(Willis, 2004)
5.Assessment Drives Performance
All students want to perform well. If students are given feedback during the teaching activity, the desire to improve performance becomes very motivating. If a student becomes responsible for their own learning, they will become more engaged and better self learners.
Killen, R. (2005). Programming and Assessment for Quality Teaching (p.
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
Parents and advocates of education can all agree that they want their students to be in the best hands possible in regards to education. They want the best teachers, staffs, and schools to ensure their student’s success. By looking at the score results from standardized testing, teachers can evaluate effectively they are doing their job. On the other side, a proponent for eliminating standardized testing would argue that not all students care passionately about their education and will likely not perform to expectations on the test. However, receiving the numerical data back, teachers can construe the student’s performances and eliminate the outliers of the negligent kids. Teachers can then look at the individual scores and assign those outliers to get the help they need in school. This helps every student getting an equal chance at education. Overall, taking a practice standardized test can let a teacher look at individual questions and scores and interpret what they need to spend more time on teaching. A school also can reap the benefits from standard testing to ensure they are providing the best possible education they can. The school can look at the average scores from a group and hold the teacher accountable for the student’s results on the test. The school can then determine the best course of action to pursuit regarding the teacher’s career at the school. By offering teachers and schools the opportunity to grow and prosper, standardized testing is a benefit for the entire education
In conclusion I feel that using effective assessment methods throughout any course allows tutors to give feedback at the right time to allow the correct progress for the learners to achieve. I have experienced feedback many times as coach and more recently as a teacher and feel it has only helped me to improve and to keep wanting to improve so I can inspire others to achieve.
Standardized testing is not the best way to measure how well a teacher teaches or how much a student has learned. Schools throughout the United States put their main focus on standardized tests; these examinations put too much pressure on the teachers and students and cause traumatizing events. Standardized testing puts strain on teachers and students causing unhealthy occurrences, Common Core is thrown at teachers with no teaching on how to teach the new way which dampers testing scores for all students, and the American College Test determines whether a child gets into college or not based on what they have learned during high school. Standardized tests are disagreeable; tests should not determine ranking of people.
Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 1999. Web. 10 April 2014
Standardized testing remains to be a major controversial issue for the American society today. Exams are given to students at different levels in their educational career and are supposed to measure their academic knowledge, but are these tests really the best way to evaluate students? There have been numerous alternatives suggested to replace or be used in conjunction with standardized testing.
One of the biggest, if not the biggest, challenge you face going through school is the standardized tests you must take at the end of the year, every year, starting in third grade. You must past these tests in order to move on to the next grade, or you keep taking them until you pass. A big question many people ask is how are these tests beneficial to real life education? The student, the teachers, the principal and the school districts are all judged based on the average scores on these tests. So, if you put that into perspective, our schools are being judged based on test results when the tests themselves are not ideal education. They are not a part of the ideal education that the kids actually remember and help them succeed in their everyday life. These standardized tests scores are not a good indication of a school’s competency because it does not prove knowledge or understanding. They take light away from real life educational understanding and put the emphasis on passing a silly test.
Assessments allow for teachers to monitor the progress and growth of his/her students, help engage students and help guide teachers as well as students in their decision making. Teachers should know that tests are not the only way to assess students in the classroom. It is important for educators constantly assess their students on comprehension and progression.Teachers can take use of both formal and informal assessments so that they can engage students in their own learning, as well as monitor their comprehension and progress.
Before the lesson is prepared, the teachers must have a clear understanding of the objectives of the lesson to be taught. By having an understanding of what they students will able to accomplish at the end of the lesson, the content remains focused and thorough. The teacher must then express these objectives to the students including the standards for performance. Students can then be held accountable for expectations that are known.
Through assessment students and teachers are able to determine the level of mastery a student has achieved with standards taught. Both formative and summative assessment should be purposeful and targeted to gain the most accurate data to drive further instruction (Ainsworth, 2010). While this syllabus does a good job of identifying the need for both formal and informal assessments, the way in which this is communicated does not provide enough detail for understanding. Simply listing assessment types does not give any insight into how these assessments fit in the learning process of this course. While some of the assessments mentioned could be common assessments chosen by the school or district to gain insight into the effectiveness of instruction, the inclusion of authentic assessments is most beneficial to students and demonstrates learning in a context closer to that of a work environment (Rovai, 2004). Unfortunately, this particular course, according to this syllabus, relies heavily on quizzes and traditional tests and essays to form the bulk of assessment opportunities. While other activities, such as formative assessments, journaling and discussions are mentioned as possible avenues for scoring, they are given a very low percentage of the overall grade. This shows that they are not valued for their ability to show progression and mastery. If this is indeed the case, this puts the students as a
In spite of the importance of assessment in education, few teachers receive proper training on how to design or analyze assessments. Due to this, when teachers are not provided with suitable assessments from their textbooks or instructional resources, teachers construct their own in an unsystematic manner. They create questions and essay prompts comparable to the ones that their teachers used, and they treat them as evaluations to administer when instructional activities are completed predominantly for allocating students' grades. In order to use assessments to improve instruction and student learning, teachers need to change their approach to assessments by making sure that they create sound assessments. To ensure that their assessments are sound they need include five basic indicators that can be used as steps to follow when creating assessments. The first of these indicators and the first step a teacher must take when creating a sound assessme...
An effective teacher will excite, inspire and motivate students to be active in their learning, investigate new areas of knowledge and make connections to future learning (Whitton et al 2010). When a teacher is successful, their students are motivated, mutually respectful and ready to build on their knowledge and solve real-world problems. To be a teacher of value, one must have many skills and qualities to cater for a diversity of learners and their individual development; this includes many personal traits that are noticed students.
Testing is one of the big issues in our education system. The idea that the whole school curriculum should be planned around tests is a foolish one, if we want to get a quality education that we can actually learn something valuable from. Having students cram empty facts and memorize test answers is not teaching them it is just encouraging more stress and late nights. On some occasions, tests are a necessary evil to see if the student has actually learned anything from what they have been taught, but to gear the whole class a...
The quality of teaching in a classroom makes the biggest learning outcome. Effective teaching leads to the improvement in a student’s achievement. Measuring effective teaching against the progress of a student is a must. It is the belief of all schools that all students must have equalising starting points which means that no matter what background a child comes from they should have the same opportunity for learning.
We need to continuously assess and evaluate our students so we can set appropriate goals for each student and individual instructions. Each child learns different, so as a teacher we need to have different styles of teaching for positive reinforcement.