Discusses "promising models" that "demonstrate how technology, used in concert with what cognitive-scientific research tells us about how people learn, can improve formative assessment and enhance teaching and learning."
Large-scale testing of educational outcomes benefits already from technological applications that address logistics such as development, administration, and scoring of tests, as well as reporting of results. Innovative applications of technology also provide rich, authentic tasks that challenge the sorts of integrated knowledge, critical thinking, and problem solving seldom well addressed in paper-based tests. Such tasks can be used on both large-scale and classroom-based assessments. Balanced assessment systems can be developed that integrate curriculum-embedded, benchmark, and summative assessments across classroom, district, state, national, and international levels. We discuss here the potential of technology to launch a new era of integrated, learning-centered assessment systems.
Tony Wagner from Harvard tells the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) that students who are taught to the test may not acquire seven "survival skills".
As U.S. students fall further behind in math and science, the Education Dept. commissions the first nationwide assessment on technology
More tests! This time not for college, but to assess how students are doing in general.
The WSJ opinion pages has stirred up quite a debate in higher education blogs this week. Is college really a waste of time and money that could be better accomplished with a series of standardized certifications? Maybe for some students - but the liberal arts degree isn't going anywhere just yet.
article detailing the positive effects of action (esp. violent first person shooter) games on science and math reasoning
Released 4/3/08, the NAEP Writing Report Card is the only ongoing National benchmark of how our students are performing in writing in the United States. This year, only 8th and 12th graders were tested
The city is expanding the use of cash rewards for students who take
standardized tests with a $1 million effort financed by philanthropists who
will pay students who do well on Advanced Placement exams.
Most children can't wait to start kindergarten and approach the beginning of school with awe and anticipation. Kindergartners and 1st graders often talk passionately about what they learn and do in school. Unfortunately, the current emphasis on standardized testing and rote learning encroaches upon many students' joy. In their zeal to raise test scores, too many policymakers wrongly assume that students who are laughing, interacting in groups, or being creative with art, music, or dance are not doing real academic work. The result is that some teachers feel pressure to preside over more sedate classrooms with students on the same page in the same book, sitting in straight rows, facing straight ahead.