[lit-ideas] Re: education again
- From: "carol kirschenbaum" <cskir@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <JulieReneB@xxxxxxx>, <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 04:17:14 -0700
Julie,
Your "perplexion"???
Teaching test-taking techniques in school isn't so dumb when the teacher's
job (and the principal's) depends on test scores. Indeed, the very existence
of a school may depend on it. And no, most standardized achievement tests
are not constructed to test knowledge learned in class. Those created by a
particular state (NY State's Regent's exams, for instance) do tend to follow
the official state-approved curriculum. The others--which includes most of
them--are created by the Educational Testing Service, or some such, which
has no idea of your particular state's curriculum.
And that means a lot of questions that even smart, well-prepared kids won't
know. (Maybe half of them or more.) I'd rather have a teacher focus on
test-taking skills than teach *to* the test, however!
Best,
Carol
----- Original Message -----
From: <JulieReneB@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 6:46 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: education again
> My perplexion was actually in response to the notion of teaching students
> techniques for guesstimating from multiple choice questions, rather than
teaching
> content over which they will be tested. It's a totally bizarre notion to
me.
> I'll ask Bronnie if they included the notion below. But...see...the
> multiple choice questions are obvoiusly intended to decieve, so if the
test-makers
> catch on to the notion that children are using this technique they'll
start
> forming the wrong answers in longer sentences....and then the children
will have
> to learn new techniques.... (am I the only person who finds totally alien
the
> notion of studying test-taking techniques?). Maybe by a vid-phone,
John...
> Julie
> obviously clueless re. education
>
> ========Original Message========
> Subj:[lit-ideas] Re: education again
> Date:4/4/2004 6:09:11 AM Central Daylight Time
> From:johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx
> To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>
> Subject:
> Re: [lit-ideas] education again
> From:
> John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date:
> Fri, 02 Apr 2004 21:12:20 -0600
>
> To:
> lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> When in doubt, and you're reduced to pure guesswork, pick the longer
> answer. This gives you a slightly higher probability of being right.
> Reason? To speak the truth usually requires more detailed thought, more
> nuanced expression, than error. Of course a teacher COULD go to the
> effort to make the "wrong" answers as long as the right one, but
> teachers, as humans, tend to skip what they don't absolutely have to do.
> It's easier to make shorter wrong answers; it's more difficult to make
> shorter RIGHT answers. (Notice the "usually" above? That's the kind of
> thing that makes right answers longer.)
>
> Does your daughter's school want to pay me big bucks to "perform" this,
> not as a film, but "live?"
>
> JulieReneB@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > In this week's newsletter from my 6th grader's Language Arts teacher:
> > "We are working on practicing for multiple choice tests. We have been
> > going over techniques to find correct answers. We also watched a film
> > that went over test techniques."
> >
> > ????????
> > Julie Krueger
> > finally rendered speechless
> >
> >
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