Note taking of Testing, Testing – Linda Darling-Hammond
Standardized tests are a distraction from real learning according to most of the audience. The
skills that we have spent so much time on is practically useless. Dozens of studies have
shown that the kind of the standardized test we used predict almost nothing about your
success later in life.
There is no correlation between the standardized test score with how people perform on the
job.
Google will not ask about our score in the standardized test. In fact, if we apply for a job in
google for example, they will find out about our learning ability. The ability to get new
information, figure out how to apply them into a complex problem, work with other people
and other’s ideas to frame a puzzle or solution. Test it and learn from that, and develop a
product or a solution.
Nowadays problem is that set of skill are in greater demand in the economy as a whole.
we’ve seen a sharp increase in the demand for higher order thinking skills and complex
communication and problem solving. And a sharp decrease in the demand for skills that are
routine, like the sort that people needed on the assembly line and in the factory. Because
those jobs are being outsourced and digitized. This problem is getting even more pronounced
as knowledge is growing at a very rapid phase.
According to Cal Barkeley, there was more new knowledge created in the world between
1999 and 2003 than the entire history of the world preceding.
85% of teachers have said that standardized testing is undermining good teaching, last year
45% said that has made them consider leaving the profession and fact some have left.
Testing as it’s growing and expanding in the curriculum and the test prep component of it is
also pushing out research and writing, science and social studies, art, music, physical
education and world language studies. Despite the fact that we know that cognitive science
has shown that studying those subjects actually expands our cognitive capacity and our basic
intelligence which raises achievement and accomplishment in a variety of domains. Perhaps
worst of all students feel less joy and more fear. Several hundred thousand parents refused to
allow their kids to take a standardized test and some have voted with their feet taking their
children out of public school into private schools where the demand for this amount of testing
with these kinds of stakes is present and where students can participate in active engaged
learning project work another things that will support them later in life.
There are some schools that said we can assess in a different way that will actually help kids
learn deeply an apply their knowledge. Suburban and urban schools across have created a
graduation portfolio system. Students complete to a set of standards projects in science. social
sciences research, literary analyses, math modelling, arts demonstrations, world language
proficiency. They do this work to a standard and revise it until it meets the standard. they
presented like dissertation to a set of judges, sometimes from outside the school like business
people and college professors as well as teachers and students and parents from inside the
school. They’re engaged and excited about their work about solving the problems that
they’ve taken on. They come before school and after school to really get it to the level of
depth and quality that they want to demonstrate and interestingly kids from these schools
even from high poverty communities actually go to college at higher rates and graduate from
college at rates nearly twice as high as the average American students. If you ask them why
they succeed in college they’ll say it’s because of this work, not only that they learn to
investigate and write clearly and speak proficiently and defend their ideas but they also
learned to plan a complex project and follow it through. they learn to be resilient in the face
of obstacles. They learn to take and use feedback. They learn to be resourceful in the way that
you need to be to succeed in life.
We are in this country at a turning point will we choose (a) reinforcing the factory model
schools of the past, or will (b) developing schools where students are able to apply their
knowledge to critical thinking and problem-solving situations?
MIT moving in a different direction, they’ve announced that they will be encouraging
students to submit portfolios as part of their admissions as have 800 other colleges and
universities.
Ideas addressed by linda hammond
1. Knowledge is growing
In the video, Linda
2. the standardized test we used predict almost nothing about your success later in life
3. Standardized testing is undermining a good teaching.
