Home Room Testing
To begin, it doesn’t have to happen in home room, but it could.
Every student, at some point in their school day will sit down at a computer, individually or in home room and answer say, ten questions.
The questions would be created on a daily basis by (someone?) in order to gather information on a specific area of a students education; math, reading, writing, … life skills.
The same questions could be asked of students school wide, district wide, state wide, or nationally. Or any combination in between.
If the aggregate answers point to a problem; follow up questions can be asked immediately to find the root of the problem.
For example; let’s say the question is asked;
When did a man first walk on the moon?
And the results show that only .0034% of high schools seniors are aware that a man has walked on the moon.
As soon as the next school day, follow up questions can be asked to explore the entire dynamic.
- What is a rocket?
- Where does the moon go when it sets?
- Is the moon made of cheese?
We are obliged to ask the last question only because we spend so long convincing children that it actually is.
It would cost next to nothing.
A Czar, a bunch of czarlings, a few multistory buildings,
not much else.
Tags: positive ideas, public schools, solutions, testing
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June 1, 2008 at 6:47 am
You’re kidding, right? It wouldn’t take much money to test each child each day?
With all due respect, what exactly is meant by the term “…the entire dynamic.”
What is the valuable information that is to be gleaned from this daily drill, given your example? How can, say, a science teacher use the national results as a tool that would inform their class’ instruction?
So, 30% of the nation’s children answer Yes, the moon is cheese, and they’re supposed to stop teaching about plate tectonics and do a lesson on lunar elements to bring the rest up to speed? Or do you suppose there should be a national curriculum where, say, all science teachers are teaching the same thing at the same time…?
Maybe we could aggregate at the school level, but then, if only a few people are manning a few floors of hardware to tabulate the national results on a daily basis, who’s going to disseminate the numbers to the schools and who’ll be in charge of oversight at the school level?
June 1, 2008 at 7:43 am
Syd,
thanks for stopping by.
Re; cost. It would cost relatively nothing. relatively being the key word.
by entire dynamic, perhaps I have used the wrong word. My point was that, once a specific problem is discovered, questions related to broader aspects of the question could be asked.space exploration v. man on the moon.
A science teacher would not be as likely to use the national data as the classroom or school wide data. If a deficiency is illuminated, it would realistically guide the next year’s instruction than the current year, simply because there is no time to re-cover material within the current rubric.
Dissemination could be done automatically. Is it too much to assume that good teachers would review pertinent data on their own?
Finally, as you are new to posting; I would offer at least one suggestion; it would help if you didn’t write to me like I was some kind of dumbass that you need to school. Ask polite questions, get polite answers.
Thank you again for stopping by.