Testing

I have some opinion about Testing. This comes from my own experience from school, and teaching and testing students in CTA, reading about testing, and also learning alternative approaches to testing.

The objective of this exercise is to take a closer look at testing and come out with an unbiased information, and take educated decision.

Let me analyze this using Six Thinking Hats.

White: the facts

Given to students to know how much they learned about the materials.

Students prepare for the test before the test, and take the test on the test day.

The teachers correct the papers and give marks, letter grade, or both.

Yellow: the advantages

It gives students the opportunity to review / study the materials.

It gives the teachers opportunity to give feedback to the students and hence the parents.

The feedback gives students the opportunity to learn what they missed.

Black: the disadvantages

It is stressful.

It is about pushing forgettable facts into the short term memory, vomiting in the test, and forgetting right after the test. Meaning, most students do not know most of what studied for the test after few weeks. Hence the long term learning because of testing is small.

Though the test gives the students opportunity to learn what they missed, most students do not because they get busy with getting good marks in the next test.

Teachers do not use test scores to help the students learn what they missed. We just move on with next lesson.

Red: Emotions

Puts too much pressure on the students and parents.

Marks do not reflect actual learning.

Does not help with long term learning.

The amount of time and resource used for testing can be used for active learning.

Green: Alternatives

Consider formative assessment.

Consider a mix of formative and summative assessments.

Consider "demonstrate your learnig" approach to assess and give mark and grades.

Consider giving marks based on their completed projects, active participation in the class, and demonstration of acquired skill/knowledge.

Blue: Recommendation

This does not change my opinion about testing. We need to seriously look at how we test, and make it effective for our students.