(...)Do Relatório disponibilizado pelo GAVE em relação à realização dos Testes Intermédios obtém-se uma imagem um pouco deprimente. Enquanto se não sair do paradigma do Comando e do Controlo mais ou menos remoto, não sairemos da cepa torta.Algumas passagens da introdução, revelam uma percepção disfórica. Afinal estes testes estão muito longe de atingir um patamar de qualidade aceitável; fraca dinâmica de conhecimento e partilha a nível dos departamentos curriculares; excessiva presença da dimensão sumativa; generalizada falta de informação dos alunos e famílias sobre os objectivos e natureza dos testes; e afinal nada de novo, nada que não se tenha já diagnosticado no relatório anterior...Relatório Aqui. E a questão central que é obrigatório colocar é a seguinte: o que faz mover as escolas e os professores? O que é que os faz querer agir de um modo educacionalmente mais sustentado e eficaz?
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João Marques passando os olhos por... terrear.blogspot.com
Testes Intermédios em meta-avaliação
http://terrear.blogspot.com/2010/12/testes-intermedios-em-meta-avaliacao.html
- Tags:
- política educativa
- exames
- testes
December 29 2010, 7:00am | Comments »
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João Marques passando os olhos por... terrear.blogspot.com
Teaching to the test - inside the story
http://terrear.blogspot.com/2010/12/teaching-to-test-inside-story.html
The debate about what standardised testing and school accountability actually do to education has been reignited in the United States by the publication of Diane Ravitch’s book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, is a respected historian of education. She was also a proponent of the key ideas behind the Bush administration’s test-driven No Child Left Behind program.After more than a decade committed to the idea of school accountability and advocating the very policies that the Rudd government has adopted, Ravitch looked at the facts, found that they had changed and changed her mind. In early March she set out some of the reasons for doing so in an article in the Wall Street Journal. “On our present course,” she wrote, “we are disrupting communities, dumbing down our schools, giving students false reports of their progress, and creating a private sector that will undermine public education without improving it. Most significantly, we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgeable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship.”Texto integral
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- exames
- efeitos secundários
- testes
December 8 2010, 4:52pm | Comments »
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João Marques passando os olhos por... terrear.blogspot.com
Teaching to the test - imperiosas reflexões a propósito dos resultados PISA
http://terrear.blogspot.com/2010/12/teaching-to-test-imperiosas-reflexoes.html
General Principles1) If the test fully tests all the material there is to have been studied and learned, and one teaches students to do well on the tests by teaching all the material (which will be on the test) so that they learn it, there is nothing wrong with teaching to the test. One can even tell students ahead of time what will be on the test, or show them a copy of the test. Because the test is comprehensive and is identical to the subject matter to be taught, it does not have to be secret.2) If the teacher teaches all the material in a way that students can learn it, understand it, use it, and then also do well on any fair test because they know all the material well, and if the test is a reasonable sampling of the material that is studied and reasonably reflects an accurate percentage of what students learn about all the material, there is nothing wrong with teaching this way, which in a way is not really teaching "to" the test, though it might be teaching with the test in mind or teaching in a way that also or secondarily allows students to do well on the test. This is simply teaching the material well.3) If the teacher teaches all the material in a way that students can learn it, understand it, use it, and then also do well on any comprehensive or sampling test, and if the teacher then also talks about and emphasizes area that are likely to be on a particular test (such as a standardized or high stakes test or the upcoming math tournament), and teaches test-taking strategies, etc., there is nothing wrong with this, although, as with any other good teaching, it skews the results of the test, though moreso than just good teaching in general does. There are situations in which test scores reflect teaching as much as they reflect learning -- reflecting on the teacher at least as much as on the students -- but one cannot tell from isolated, or perhaps even aggregate, test scores themselves when that happens. (In the reverse, low test scores may reflect problems outside of teaching and learning, but one cannot tell that from just the test scores themselves either.)3a) I would go so far as to contend that if in the case of 3 above, the test is made to be "tricky" or psychologically difficult in ways that might reasonably be considered unfair, then teaching as in 3 above is particularly fair, because it counteracts the wrong that is being done by the test. An example is that many driver's license tests have somewhere on their route a stop sign partially hidden behind tree limbs that is easy to miss if you do not know it is there, or they have a stop sign in a most unusual place that would be easy to miss if you do not know it is there. Since such a driving test is somewhat unfair, if a driving instructor teaches a student how to drive well and then also warns the student about these particular signs in this particular test, that is not unfair. Similarly, if one knows a particular standardized multiple choice test often includes incorrect answers that are very much like the correct answer, there is nothing wrong with demonstrating that to students so that they are particularly careful when taking the test, to make sure they examine all the answers before marking one.The larger question raised by 3A is to what extent, if any, it is fair to prepare students by what would otherwise wrongly be teaching to a test when the test one is preparing them for is itself unfair or unreasonable in either its design or its use. My view is that if a test is immoral or unfair in its design and in its use, it ought not to be used, particularly or proportionally as the stakes for which the test is being unreasonably used become higher. If the test is still used, it seems to me that it is morally better and more decent to coach students through the test in order to skew the results in their favor than to allow them to endure the unreasonable consequences of an unfairly used exam. Using such a test, if it drives the curriculum, narrows the curriculum in a way that cheats students out of being taught what they should, but since the test itself is unfair and unfairly used, it does not seem to me to be immoral to teach to it in a way that skews its results. In fact, it would seem to me to be immoral not to do that if it means students would then unfairly be disadvantaged by their resulting scores.It cannot be the design alone for the above to apply; the usage must also be unfair because there are some unfair test designs whose purpose is to teach, not to condemn to a high stakes losing result. When I teach photography I use an unfair question to make an extremely important point that needs to be impressed upon anyone studying photography. I ask them to look at my face and describe what they see. They typically describe features of my face, but that is not all they see. They see the wall behind me; they see more of my body, my hands, perhaps their own hands or even knees, etc. The question is unfair because it implies for them to look at my face and describe what they see on my face. However, the point I need to impress upon them is that when they use a camera, unless they are thinking about it, they will make the same mistake of "zooming in" with their mind, or concentrating on, and thus "seeing in their mind's eye," only the subject they are interested in and they will not see what the camera actually sees and what will actually be in the picture. They will then be disappointed later. So I am using a trick and unfair question to make an important point; I am not using it to weed out people from some important position that has nothing to do with whether they happen to know the answer or not. I believe that is all right to do.However, for fair sampling types of tests which are used to evaluate in some final way, not to teach nor to diagnose what needs teaching:4) If teaching the material undermines the "sampling" nature of the test so that what is taught purposely and knowingly is only or primarily what is on the test, and what is on the test is not exhaustive of the material, then teaching "to" the test is wrong and is not totally dissimilar to what is normally considered cheating in order to obtain a higher than deserved score. And it potentially also disserves the students' education.5) If teaching the material undermines the "sampling" nature of the test so that what is taught is coincidentally and accidentally only, or primarily, what is on the test, and what is on the test is not exhaustive of the material, then this is not morally wrong, but it may skew the results in such a way that makes it difficult to know what to make of comparisons with the results of other students who were taught differently. In one way it invalidates the test results, but in another way, it does not. It perhaps invalidates the use of the test more than it invalidates the scores. If the test score is taken as a sign of something about the students' abilities or work ethics (study habits, etc.) rather than about the quality of their teaching or their experiences, then that is a mistaken use of the test.5a) Since knowledge, familiarty, and comfort with the format or style of the test questions themselves can be a matter of experience and teaching, if prior knowledge or practice and explanation with the testing format (as in example H -- the folding pattern spatial relations test at the beginning of this paper) helps students do better on a test, then it is unfair to compare scores of students who have had such prior knowledge with students who have not. It is likely better to give all students such practice rather than to give it to none of them, but it is important to treat them all equally in this regard, either way, if one is going to compare their scores for meaningful, particularly high stakes, results.6) If the test accidentally, coincidentally, or causally but unwittingly tests what some students are more likely to know than others, through no fault of students, teachers, or anyone else, that is not dishonest, but is unfair and gives skewed, misleading results. This is normally called cultural bias, but "cultural" may be misleading if it is taken to mean "racial" or "ethnic" rather than having to do with differential life experiences for whatever reason.Texto integral
December 8 2010, 4:33pm | Comments »
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