Assessment Reflection

Overwhelmed. After this week's class of Teaching with Technology I feel like in the next few years, as a new teacher, I will face many difficulties and being aware of it is overwhelming. I know the point of our class conversations was not to inspire fear of the future but instead for us to know the world of education that we are going to be entering, in a short few weeks as teacher interns and in a year in my very own classroom. This world is a world of standardized exams and teacher assessments that will depend on the "growth" of their students. How do we become effective teachers that care about students social and emotional needs while also making sure that students are able to successfully pass and grow on standardized tests? This, in addition to all of the other responsibilities teachers have, is overwhelming and what I believe will be the biggest struggle of being an educator.

First, lets talk quickly about standardized exams measuring students' growth. Half of the battle of passing a standardized exam is strategy such as knowing how to approach specific problems, what types of questions that can be asked, and time management skills.  But shouldn't education focus on actually teaching important content material not how to take a test? I believe that standards can be a positive influence in education as they provide important information guidance for what teachers should teach, but one should not take them as an end-all-be-all. What you teach shouldn't only be to the standards...standards should be a guide. Back to standardized testing...my other question is if a students growth or success (however that's defined) can be measured in one day by one test. There a lot of problems with standardized testing, but it only seems to be playing a larger role in education as time goes on.

I was also shocked about the computer testing interface that is going to be used for annual student standardized testing. It was nearly impossible to use and was confusing to navigate. It also seemed to limit the ability to move forward in a question sequence and come back to a problem, which decreases the opportunity for smart test taking . If these standardized tests adjust to the difficulty of the student as they progress through the test, students will manipulate the system (as I learned they do so well while playing math computer games with 8th graders at our summer placement). These computer assessments are a little intimidating as a teacher whose job depends on the growth of the students as measured by these standardized assessments.

As these standardized assessments are part of the teacher assessment bills waiting to be passed into law, they are going to directly affect what districts teachers want to work in.  If teacher assessment is directly tied (with such a high percentage) to the students' standardized test scores, teachers will only want to work in high performing districts and those students, who require the best teachers, in low-income marginalized communities will be less favorable to work with as those students will not see growth in the same ways that more successful school districts will.  Our state representative assured us that these new standardized tests will not be used to compare across districts, but are only meant to compare the students to themselves. I have a hard time understanding how other comparisons will not be made, maybe they will not be made to determine funding, but I think other comparisons could be easily made.  I would like to work in a urban high-needs community and believe that the students in those communities can grow leaps and bounds and achieve greater "growth" than in more successful school districts. But is this "growth" adequately measured by standardized tests?

While I believe the current state of education is in a pretty sad state, it doesn't seem to be moving in the right direction. What kind of reform will be required to change education? How much failure would it take? How many years of standardized testing and unfair assessments will there be?