For the next 2 weeks in all ICT classes at AP1 campus the students are taking an online test (Goal on Line UK based) in maths and science which they do 3 times a year. The questions get slightly harder as you progress through the yschool , and new questions are introduced at each age level. However many of the questions between Year 1- 3 seem to be the same. Our management believe this test gives valuable feedback to the teachers and you can track the child's progress. But one must ask what sort of feedback? Yes it does provide a score and it does tell you the mark the student attained in analysing, or problemsolving etc. However what it doesn't tell you is how the child got the answer. While this test is based in the UK and uses UK examples eg the temperature difference between Leeds and London, and the text is read via ear phones to the students, it is read by some nice lady with an English voice. On each screen are 3 possible answers, so if by chance you had a slip of the mouse and for example an odd number went in the right or wrong box, the student has no way of finding out .Its basically a drag and drop exercise. And an exercise in luck.
So in a school with a large percentage of students where English is a second language, and a school with high number of EAL students who receive concentrated English support each day. These children are being tested on a British test. I know the school is a British School teaching a British curriculum and has to have a "Britishness" feel about it but...........
Everybody in NZ knows that the most valuable type of feedback is that of the teacher having a conversation with the child. I'm sure if I went through Hatties research online testing wouldn't rate a mention in the first 164 aspects of what helps a child learn.
Do the teachers really care about the test results. The ones I have talked to don't rate the results.Tthey enter them on the tracking sheets like they are supposed to, but analysing the results............. I do the testing and they get the mark back, they don't even see a copy of the test! That's how ludicrous it is.
To my mind there has to be a better way, and a way that is not putting more pressure on the teachers. Right now we are dying under the weight of more on top syndrome.
If we have to do this test perhaps 3 - 5 questions so the teacher / teachers assistant can sit beside a child and watch what they are doing, ask the questions, why did you do that, and discover their means of problem solving.
I effectively spend 6 weeks of the year away from my ICT curriculum administering an online test because this campus does not have the facilities for the teachers to administer the test.
So here is Risa, a very bright Japanese student in year one, reading after competing her test. definitely food for thought. for both Risa and I
2 comments:
Definitely has 'cringe' factor. Where is formative assessment in all this?
It is a bit like PAT. At best it would show a trend. If the score was the same in year1 and year 3 it would be a concern. I guess the stats are a concrete figure that can be mulled over. Do the stats reflect true learning? Nah!
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