True or False: Teaching + Assessment = Learning
What I always try to have my teachers do is assess their learning abilities daily through formative assessments that vary in length, style, and delivery. My message to them is that their teaching, when assessed, leads to evidence of efficacy which can and should inform sequential learning.
However, this does beg the question of whether teaching with negative results on assessments doesn’t equal evidence of the process of the learning cycle nonetheless — as failing is a part of learning. The act of incorporating fair and varied assessment, leads to accurate predictions of comprehension so teachers can know to move forward or revise and review content and pace.
Assessments like the SAT’s, which are fighting hard to maintain relevance as accurate measurements on a national stage therefore compartmentalizing learners based on one test — do not define the teaching aspect and simply offer an assessment to the equation and cannot then equal accurate measurement of learning.
Even if we take SAT preparation courses, our 12 years of schooling do not allow us equal opportunities of exposure to education on that same national stage, and so the same national test can’t possibly be accurate.
The notion of the SAT, is to predict student successes in college, when a study conducted in 2014 stated that “The SAT’s only measure about 18 percent of what it takes to be successful in college.” available on pbs.org here. The business of education is real.
Final exams at the end of semesters in high schools, try to capture learning conducted over 4–5 months of time, and are traditionally the accepted means of capturing learning based on one overarching assessment.
When in the real world are we assessed on something that takes us 4–5 months to complete? Why do we group that amount of information into that time period and expect students to remember it all for that one test? That measures the product too heavily, and values the importance of the end result in a way that defines what’s inaccurate about the SAT’s.
That final assessment is to test the students ability to recall, and when it’s not applied in real form for real use, the information will be forgotten — so measurement of real learning does not happen. Perhaps if a final exam is in parts that make a whole presentation such as the International Baccalaureate Program does as opposed to AP tests which are multiple choice and essay — real learning can be measured. The process is included this way.
What are we looking for to define learning then? This is the real question.
Learning includes failure. Learning includes trial and error. Learning begins with a hypothesis or a question, and tracks how to obtain solutions, which lead to relevance, purpose, and therefore application and eventual improvement. When the equation values one aspect more than others, the equation backfires and doesn’t coherently connect.
Learning includes learning how students learned that day, so they can learn more efficiently the next — so teachers are connected to that cycle wholeheartedly. Sometimes on an unhealthy level.
To improve the learning end of the equation, assessment can vary and perhaps make an astounding impact to the learning results — however in that case assessment here is the teaching. For example, if a class of students show 75% passing on a 30 question multiple choice and essay test — that same class could show 98% passing on a culminating project that can be selected from a list all varying in multimedia, style, delivery, and group size.
One may seem traditionally more rigorous, yet the other will prove more accurate reflection of learning and will produce higher success levels of evidential learning due to higher participation, higher level of engagement, increased collaboration and communication in completing the project focusing on holistically educating students, and finally creativity is fostered due to the depth of exposure to content and subject matter that the students embarked upon in completing the tasks they chose.
The perspective of 30 multiple choice questions now seems a pointless when looking at the learning cycle. Teaching can force learning, but the results will not be as successful nor therefore as accurate because of efficacy. The result is the focus, and the assessment was not a valid measurement of learning, rather than only content recall. Anyone can memorize temporarily.
