Hey,
I was completing activity 4.1 for ICT Design, reviewing my own education experiences when it got me thinking. I was taught in very traditional teaching styles predominantly through primary school. This progressed as as we got older to more Student Centered Learning at Secondary school. I think this related to staff familiarity with the cohort (but could also be the a timeframe thing, primary the mid nineties and secondary the 2000's). In my experiences both helped me with my education, and I've many happy if not great memories from the varying classroom environments created by my teachers.
But what really stood out was that when "crunch time" examinations would be imminent. Teachers would drastically change their teaching style to Chalk & Talk. From my experience this would cause systemic disruption to the class as it was like arriving on a different planet. Students who would not struggle with the examination anyway could easily adjust, those who struggled, would struggle more and those who couldn't handle the change would rebel, fail and disrupt.
So I have heaps of questions; does/should/would examinations effect teaching strategy? is this a good/bad thing? and if so does this mean ultimately we're teaching to the exam? and does this represent that when the chips are down we go back to the traditional teaching methods for guaranty?
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Hi Nigel
ReplyDeleteGood points. I seem to remember that in my last 2 years of high school, studying for the HSC (as it was in NSW) a lot of the subjects at least for the last year, perhaps even the last 2 years were aimed at teaching for the exam.
And another thing to think about - is this style of exam the right way of assessing students anyway? I remember cramming the day and night before each exam and remembering enough to do well in the exam and then a few days later - the information is gone, at least some of it anyway. What are these kind of exams really testing? It's interesting that we don't have any exams in this Diploma and that it is all assessment based.
Tina
(My blog is bean-the-teacher.blogspot.com)
Hi Nigel,
ReplyDeleteYes these are good questions and with no simple answer.
We have a curriculum that we are obliged/compelled to teach and students are to learn. To see if the students have learned we need to assess so that we can provide additional assistance or increase the challenge level for those who find the learning too easy.
There is a theoretical construct known as "Constructive Alignment" (Biggs,1999) (see: http://www.engsc.ac.uk/er/theory/constructive_alignment.asp) where curriculum, teaching and assessment should all align. Assessment can be formative ( a guide to help students and teachers) and summative (a quantitative measure of learning) or both.
In the UK currently there is pressure to increase the amount of regular formative feedback for school students in favour of the more standardised testing seen in Australia and the US.
If you want to see examples of the teaching behaviour you have suggested, you need go no further than whatn hapens in schools just before NAPLAN testing. Classes suspended for 2 weeks to practice typical tests and their formats. During this time learning virtually stops so that the school can maximise its student performance level and avoid becoming a target of the MySchool Website or league tables that can adversely affect school enrollments.
So much for the problems, what about some answers?
1. Assess regularly and at the end of each block/unit of work.
2. Make the learning meaningful and authentic so that students commit their knowledge and understanding to long-term memory.
3. Adopt a multiplicity of assessment approaches with large amounts of formative information.
4. Be an energetic and motivated teacher as it rubs off on your students.
5. Have high expectations of your students regardless of their social or ethnic background as students pick up on this and will achieve better results if they think that you believe they are capable.
Anyway, just a couple of ideas.
Best,
Scot.
Biggs. John (1999): Teaching for Quality Learning at University, (SRHE and Open University Press, Buckingham)