{"id":514,"date":"2011-09-05T12:21:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T16:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coreeducationllc.com\/blog2\/?p=514"},"modified":"2012-04-26T14:05:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T18:05:13","slug":"a-teacher-finds-good-in-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coreeducationllc.com\/blog2\/a-teacher-finds-good-in-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Teacher Finds Good in Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

n the August 31, 2011 issue of Education Week,<\/em> former educator Ama Nyamekye reflects on the controversy surrounding high-stakes testing.\u00a0 In college, she was active in protesting these types of tests and thought that \u201cgood teachers should be left to their own devices.\u201d She writes, \u201c I was certain that I was a good teacher. For the most part, my students were punctual, respectful, and engaged. It wasn\u2019t until my second year in the classroom that I began questioning this assumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident that made her begin questioning was a comment from her administrator during a routine evaluation.\u00a0 She asked Nyamekye how she knew her students were really understanding the material, and urged her to develop more rigorous assessments of student learning.<\/p>\n

The next school year, Nyamekye decided to have her sophomore English students take the state Comprehensive English Regents Examinations a year early.\u00a0 As she deconstructed the exam, she began to really understand its strengths and weaknesses, and recognize it as more than a final hurdle to be crossed at the end of the year.\u00a0 She discovered it is also a tool that could be utilized to balance out her own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher.<\/p>\n

Having once dismissed the standardized test \u201cfor its narrow focus on a discrete set of skills,\u201d the exam showed her where there were gaps in her curriculum and how her self-made assessments were skewed in the direction of her strengths as a teacher.\u00a0 She also had been using her intimate knowledge of her students when designing her assessments, which not surprisingly influenced her grading and perceptions of student performance.<\/p>\n

Nyamekye does not contend that there is no room for improvement in the way standardized tests are developed and administered, and is far from advocating the \u201cdrill and kill\u201d approach feared by most educators.\u00a0 Her perspective is insightful:<\/p>\n

When I \u201cdepoliticized\u201d the test, I found a useful and flawed ally. The exam excelled where I struggled, offering comprehensive and standards-based assessments. I thrived where the test fell short, designing creative, performance-based projects. Together, we were strategic partners\u2026The test didn\u2019t make my students smarter. It made the teacher smarter. I learned that my job wasn\u2019t simply to encourage students to relentlessly pursue knowledge. I needed to constantly test what I thought I knew about teaching. <\/em><\/p>\n

To read her full article, please visit http:\/\/www.edweek.org\/ew\/articles\/2011\/08\/31\/02nyamekye_ep.h31.html?r=1770956102<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

n the August 31, 2011 issue of Education Week, former educator Ama Nyamekye reflects on the controversy surrounding high-stakes testing.\u00a0 In college, she was active in protesting these types of tests and thought that \u201cgood teachers should be left to their own devices.\u201d She writes, \u201c I was certain that I was a good teacher. Read more about A Teacher Finds Good in Testing<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[106,115,93,76],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-professional-learning","tag-data-use","tag-high-school","tag-high-stakes-testing","tag-professional-learning-2"],"yoast_head":"\nA Teacher Finds Good in Testing - Core Education, LLC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.coreeducationllc.com\/blog2\/a-teacher-finds-good-in-testing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Teacher Finds Good in Testing - Core Education, LLC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"n the August 31, 2011 issue of Education Week, former educator Ama Nyamekye reflects on the controversy surrounding high-stakes testing.\u00a0 In college, she was active in protesting these types of tests and thought that \u201cgood teachers should be left to their own devices.\u201d She writes, \u201c I was certain that I was a good teacher. 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