Future thoughts...

As I am working through my M.Ed. online in Curriculum & Instruction Technology, I am pondering where this will take me in my career? Education is a funny thing... Ten years ago we were heroes and now we are lazy and over paid! So, where am I going as I take a pay cut and have less time to do more work? This is the question?
Will education be the same in the future? Are we destined to have charter schools? Our we the last generation of public school teachers? Will students learn on-line and be transported to social events? I think the answer will be in technology and the school will be unable to exist under the budget issues. We will see what the future will hold.

Are tests the only objectives in student learning?

Are tests the only objectives in student learning?

Depending on your experience teaching and the training program you went to, you would answer the question differently.

If you are a veteran teacher of 20+ years you will be irritated since you have seen so make “flavors of the month” come around when it comes to assessment and curriculum. Of course you need tight lessons with an outcome in mind, however the way you learned to teach is to leave lessons more open ended. It is not that a veteran teacher thinks that a test/assessment is wrong but the idea of “teaching to the test” keeps creativity out of the equation.

If you have been a teacher for 10 to 19 years you have seen the way it was done and the way it is now. The change over was not quietly in any manner. You finished your teaching program and then 5 years into it you were thrown into many changes. Technology entered the classroom and then “No Child Left Behind” came into play. You were still rolling with the old but trying to implement the new aspects that are expected of you.

If you are a newer teacher you have always seen objective written on the board and making sure you had to align content standards with the curriculum. Those standards were matched with the testing that would be given by each state. Those test score would then affect a school AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) at your school. It did not matter where or who you taught progress needs to be made on those tests.

I am a teacher in the middle and have been for 15 years now. I have seen the beauty of well funded schools to this teach to the test atmosphere, it is difficult to do at times because students do not see where these tests are important to them other than they have to meet the goal to graduate from high school. This current state of constant testing does not allow for project based learning which is more what students want to do and are motivated to work on. Being in this state of flux is difficult since I need to promote the achievement of my students but I think they are missing out on more authentic learning environments.

So, my answer is tests are not the only objective in student learning. However, they have to be in our current state of education.