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"Testing is a major challenge in education. Agreeing on what’s to be tested and how it’s to be administered is a matter of much debate. It’s also a big business... [Common Core testing may include] adaptive computer-based testing to the existing assessments forms, which in many states include short-written responses. While efforts like these continue, there remains a chasm between the progressive vision of a 21st century learning environment, and a decidedly 20th century assessment style. 
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"Having essential questions drive curriculum and learning has become core to many educators' instructional practices. Grant Wiggins, in his work on Understanding By Design, describes an essential quetion as: A meaning of “essential” involves important questions that recur throughout one’s life. Such questions are broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable – What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author’s view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional..."
Beth Dichter's insight:
Why should we teach students to develop their own essential questions? Perhaps because they may be able to develop questions that are engaging and of interest to them. In addition there is information on how to help students generate their own essential questions (additional information in the post): * Begin a New Unit with Students Developing Questions * Create a Taxonomy of Questions * Ask Students to Create Questions as Homework She also shares information on the QFT (Question Formulation Technique) which has six steps, beginning with "Teacher Design a Question Focus" and immediately moves to "Students Produce Questions" and then to "Students Improve Question" and finishes with "Students Reflect on What they have Learned." For more information (and steps 4 and 5) check out the post!
Patrice Bucci's curator insight,
September 29, 2013 7:00 PM
So true... I cringe when I am in classrooms with the packaged program "essential question" of the week on the board...and very often those "essential questions" lack cognitive clarity for the students 
Mary Reilley Clark's curator insight,
January 8, 2014 1:33 PM
A great summary of why questioning still matters. We've been talking about metacognition a lot this year in the library. Learning how to develop questions is a large part of learning how you learn and think. 
Stacey Jackowski's curator insight,
February 19, 2014 8:20 PM
This quote is so true. Learning how to ask essential questions is a skill that we can carry with us for the rest of our lives and facilitates a lifetime of learning.
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"Tests now being designed for the common standards are likely to gauge deeper levels of learning and have a major impact on classroom instruction, according to a study of the common assessments released today."
Beth Dichter's insight:
The Common Core testing is rapidly approaching and this article discusses a research paper that was just released by UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards & Student Testing. They state that "the assessments hold a lot of promise for improving teacher practice and student learning" and that "the test-making projects face key financial, technical, and political challenges that could affect their success." They also reference a variety of resources, including one new to me called the Depth of Knowledge Levels (DOK), which provides four levels (the link to the DOK is at http://dese.mo.gov/divimprove/sia/msip/DOK_Chart.pdf): * Level One is recall * Level Two is skill/concept * Level Three is strategic thinking * Level Four is extended thinking The link to this DOK reminds me of Bloom's Taxonomy with verbs to help you understand each section as well as activities based on the level. The question that remains to be answered is if the tests being created by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium will reach these levels, and according to this report it appears that will have "the more lengthy, complex performance tasks being crafted by the two groups...seemed likely to assess skills at DOK Level 4." The post also discusses some of the issues that remain, including cost and time of testing, cost of scoring, dealing with accomocations, and "Managing the "shock to the public and to teachers' instructional practice" that the tests' increased intellectual rigor will demand."
Monica S Mcfeeters's curator insight,
February 4, 2013 12:59 PM
How do you test creativity and innovation using "set" core standards of evaluation? Creativity and innovation require a certain amount of willingness for failure and risk taking. How does training for common core test "standards" assist that higher level goal?
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With the NCLB Act schools have been required to increase their testing. In this post Gerstein states "I believe that tests provide an illusion that something has been learned, one that all stakeholders; teachers, administrators, parents, and students, themselves, have bought into." She also states that she believes there "are qualitatve differences between assessment, measure, and tests." Gerstein brings in information from Cathy Davidson's post 'How Do We Measure What Really Counts in the Classroom" as well as information about the recent cheating scandal Harvard.
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"By now most people understand that standardized tests are not only harmful, but often they are also poorly constructed. But is there such thing as a good test? I was having a conversation with Cathy Earle about the subject and wondered if there is such thing as a good test. During that conversation she explained the reality is that in many cases the problem is how tests are used i.e. to assess students rather than help them learn. I asked her to say more and provide and example. Here it is and I have to admit...I rather like this kind of test." Read on to learn about a test that is not quite the norm, but definitely engages the student as well as others!
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There are times when we question who creates the materials for standarized tests...and this is one of them. How about a test that takes a famous Aesop fable, The Tortoise and the Hare' and chooses to substitute a pineapple for the hare?" Would this be an improvement? "Next, the story was used in a standardized reading comprehension test for eighth grade students. The last, and worst part: the test writers came up with a series of 6 comprehension questions, two of which are completely baffling." This post has the entire story from the exam as well as the two questions. It also turns out that Daniel Pinkwater (children's author) wrote the original story as a fractured "fractured fable" but that fable had an eggplant, not a pineapple. You can read Pinkwater's interview about this issue at this link:
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A look at two surveys with very different results. The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher "showed that teachers across the nation are demoralized and that their job satisfaction has dropped precipitously since 2009. The proportion thinking of leaving teaching has gone from 17 percent to 29 percent, a 70 percent increase in only two years."
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"The handy infographic below is a fun look at making useful and targeted multiple choice questions, and while it is fun to look at, it points out a few important tidbits that struck me as being important to remember whether you’re using technology to assess your students or whether you’re doing it the old fashioned way. Keep reading to learn more."
Beth Dichter's insight:
This post explores multiple choice questions, providing some background information that may help you design better questions for assessment. Did you know that (info below quoted from post): * Questions in a multiple choice assessment are called the “Stem”. * For each question, there is a key answer, and distractors. * The distractors should be plausible answers, true statements (when possible) , and about the same length as the key. Learn more by clicking through to the post!
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"As any parent or teacher knows, tests can create crippling anxiety in students–and anxious kids can perform below their true abilities. But new research in cognitive science and psychology is giving us a clearer understanding of the link between stress and performance, and allowing experts to develop specific strategies for helping kids manage their fears."
Beth Dichter's insight:
What can we do to help our students with test anxiety? New research is providing some strategies that my help students. This post discusses three strategies you may want to consider trying in your classroom. * Unload on paper – Research has shown that allowing students to write their concerns on paper for about 10 minutes before a test allows them to relieve some of their anxiety, allowing them to score higher on a test. The post provides a link to this research. * Affirm your values – It may come as no surprise that minorities and females often are apprehensive when required to take a test, and it turns out that writing may also play a role here. In this study students were asked to write “about something they value and write about why it matters.” * Engage in relaxation exercise – Younger students may have a more difficult time expressing concerns over a test. Research has found that teaching younger students (1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders) relaxation and breathing exercise reduces test anxiety (providing you also have them do the exercises prior to the testing). For more information on these strategies click through to the post.
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What does it mean when we say students need to be able to "tranfer" their learning? Grant Wiggins explores this in the post with a look at what it means to "know" something as opposed to "understand" and/or "apply" a specific piece of knowledge. Using the Pythagoreum Theorum as the example he walks us through these concepts and how they require students "to realize which specific prior learning is called for and apply it." He also states "If you can only recall and state something you don't really understand it...(you need) a Meaning Goal...and...(a) Transfer..."
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Experts who work on technology-enhanced assessment have a few ideas to replace those tiresome multiple-choice tests that so many people complain about. Take this one, for instance: "A middle school student sits down at a computer and watches an animation of a spring that powers a racecar in a pinball machine. Prompts lead her to think about what gives the spring its power: Is it the thickness of the wire? The number of coils? She has to choose a hypothesis and explain what leads her to think it could be correct. She designs an experiment to test her hypothesis, inquiring into how the thickness of the wire and the number of coils affect the spring's ability to propel the racecar..." A look at what online testing may look like with a number of examples...with the caveat that "the potential of technology-enhanced tests, however, was tempered throughout the discussions with a sense of how far there is to go before such tests are refined and available, and the challenges they pose when they are ready."
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'How do we assess learning in real life?' So what would happen if instead of standardized tests we looked at school work, engaged students in games that will allow them to show mastery by progress...these ideas plus six other are waiting to be read in this post.
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Back in January 2012 this article was posted suggesting that "if our 'standards' in education are to have any meaning at all, they must be standards for policy makers as well." Rick Roach, who is on the Orange County (Florida) School Board took the state FCAT (10th grade exam) and states: "I won’t beat around the bush. The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62%. In our system, that’s a ‘D,’ and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction… It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a Bachelor of Science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate...” Many other resources are available in this post. For additional information and comments from Scott McLeod, who took on the challenge, taking the ACT. Check out his post "Taking the ACT a Quarter Century After High School" at http://bigthink.com/ideas/taking-the-act-a-quarter-century-after-high-school ;
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"A comprehensive report in late March by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides strong evidence that adults in as many as 200 school systems have been cheating on their students’ standardized tests...But a teacher I correspond with occasionally brought me up short recently. My focus on actual, literal cheating — physically changing answers or giving kids answers in advance — is too narrow, this teacher wrote."
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If the goal in education is to graduate students whom are 21st century ready (a century we are already 14 years into) the question of appropriate testing comes up. This post explores this issue and shares what may be taking place in a classroom and how it is not necessarily testable with paper and pencil. Therefore as educators we need to "promote self-initiated transfer."
The post is split into three sections. The first section looks at testing today. The second section provides "a picture of 21st century learning." The third section explores the challenge, the fact that in theory we are teaching one way and assessing a different way (and as they refer to it in the post, we may be teaching 21st century but we are using an assessment tool that is 20th century). The final section explores one possible solution.
There is much to ponder on in this post which may lead you to think of ways to help students take ownership of learning how to effectively transfer knowlege.