This week, I read Suzanne Lane's 2004 NCME presidential address, which addressed high-stakes testing and questioned whether or not students are participating in complex mathematical thinking. The article, written 3 years after the establishment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), does not dismiss NCLB, but rather argues that there is a lack of cohesion in the system. Perhaps no child is left behind, but is this keeping some children from moving ahead? Lane contends that high-stakes testing has become more of an accountability system and less of an opportunity for students and teachers to engage with complex mathematical thinking. Lane addresses the misalignment of state standards and assessment, what is meant by proficiency, and the impact of large-scale assessment and instruction.
Lane's mention of the imbalance of classroom assessment and high-stakes assessment was the most significant point in the article for me. Even at the university, we often speak of the imbalance between homework assignments and what students encounter exams. Instructors remark that they want students to see conceptually heavy content and problems in their homework, but at the same time, produce exams and midterms primarily testing procedural knowledge. Is it reasonable for instructors to expect that all students will spend the time to learn particular material if their "most important" form of assessment does not consider such knowledge? Within the elementary and secondary system, Lane expresses that a "balanced assessment system is needed with a focus not only on quality large-scale assessments, but also on quality classroom assessments that reflect the content standards and are designed to enhance student learning" (p. 13). She emphasizes that assessments can be opportunities for learning, not simply an analysis of.
If classroom assessment is based off of content standards, why aren't large scale assessments? Why is there such an imbalance between two educational practices, which presumably, were developed by the same group of people? As a teacher in such a system, how might you navigate such unsteady waters?
Vanessa, I like the attention you draw to how this translates at the university level. I think there, the assessment conundrum you describe has gotten even more acute in light of how easy it is to cheat/get solutions these days. I know when I taught upper year classes I struggled hugely with this: tests seemed so artificial, but homework was basically meaningless. This is one of the most frequent topics of discussion I have with my colleagues: everyone seems concerned that we are doing a disservice to our students, but no one has a fix. I settled on - and tend to advocate for - the imperfect solution of presentations and projects. But then again: scaling up - be it to several hundred in a university class, or several hundred thousand in standardized tests - is pretty infeasible. Personally, I think procedural knowledge tends to get tested because it is easy to test; we tell ourselves it provides evidence of conceptual knowledge. Even if we assume that is true though, is it enough?
ReplyDeleteI'm just going to comment back because I feel like this is a good conversation, and I don't want it to be lost in the shadows of the blog. :P
ReplyDeleteIn the class I'm teaching now, we put a lot of effort into the assignments to make sure it is very difficult for them to look up answers. The questions are quite unique and I think it would take more effort for them to attempt to look up a solution. Furthermore, I recommended we have them do some writing about the concepts they are learning in the class. The idea is to translate the symbolic notation of the concept into something a bit more tangible, to help them with the abstraction process. Of course, I know the lengths some students will go to complete the homework, but there seems to be a general consensus among the students that going to office hours is a better use of their time. I think if instructors and professors can make their office hours really worthwhile for the students, this can make a difference. Just from experience, I learned so much more from professors who really cared about office hours than ones who didn't. My first real analysis prof just gave out solutions, which for me, was entirely frustrating. I wonder if there is any research on professor's office hours and student achievement.
Vanessa & Sophie,
ReplyDeleteI fully agree that there is a huge disparity in how we want students to learn and how we assess their learning. Is it an assessment for learning? Of learning? Both? In my experience, assessment for learning is much more useful for both the teacher and student. As mentioned this can be very difficult to achieve in a standardized test on a large scale. Often teachers never see the standardized tests after they have been completed as they are shipped off somewhere to be marked.
I think one of the important underlying questions here is, What is the purpose of standardized assessments? If it is to compare schools, then for what reason? It seems that the only use of standardized assessments, that I have witnessed, has been to rank schools. Does the province adjust their education plan to address the needs brought up by the assessments? It seems that I have brought up more questions than answers I'm afraid.