Re: Testing/NCLB/ Benchmarks/teaching to the test

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I'm not sure that is teaching to the test, testing.

Think about it. Apparently, the students reading strategies were
weak and their writing was weak. Learning new methods and
strategies can help them become better writers by using different
techniques or learning reading strategies to comprehend the text
better are all methods to help the students improve skills.

Here is an example of teaching to the test. The MS writing test
expect so see specific types of writing used in the student's
writing to the prompt. So, the teacher works with each student to
find a word such as however, therefore, of course and teaches the
student how to use this word in almost any essay. The teacher
then finds a list of things the student can put in a series
separated by commas. The teacher then teaches the student how to
use a compound sentence that can appear in almost any writing or
how to join any two sentences with and. Knowing the state writing
assessors need to see these specific things, the teacher has the
student write multiple essays using these specific examples. The
rest of the essay is very simplistic, but the high-powered verb
that was learned is there, the list is there, the introductory
word followed by a comma is there. The three adjectives they know
are there and so is the one adverb. This is how a group of
students passed the state writing test (barely).

Reading, teach process of elimination of answers and how to look
back to find information by matching common phrases. The majority
of the time using these strategies, a student can pass a reading
state test in my state.

I would rather teach a student to read the text and understand it
rather than how to go back to find the right answer. Most of
life's reading does not come with a multiple choice test following
the text.

On 12/30/08, testing wrote:
> On 12/29/08, Duh! You teach to the test! Simple wrote:
> Schools spend a lot of time studying data year after year
> knowing exactly the frameworks that fall below state level.
>
> Teachers are sent to professional development to learn specific
> writing techniques or reading strategies that will improve test
> scores. If that is not teaching to the test , what is????/
>> On 12/29/08, Vicky wrote:
>>> I have a question. How has testing made teaching better or
>>> worse? What are resources you feel you would keep even if
>>> students were not tested?

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