Standardized Test Prompt 2

Standardized testing is a commonly used assessment. It is a formal assessment that is scored. Generally, they are also are summative, covering material from the whole year. These assessments can be reliable, since it is consistent in its scoring, however they may lack validity since they are intended to measure knowledge of different content areas, especially math and reading, but may not do so well. Students may be distracted, having a bad day, or be bad at test taking, and therefore, the test results may not be valid. There are many complaints about standardized tests, including that they are not equitable. Some tests may be inequitable in the types of questions they ask. Some questions are relevant to only certain cultures, such as questions about holidays. This can be very exclusive to other students.

Blog Prompt 2

Standardized tests are usually used at the end of the year, therefore they are summative, since they do not inform the current instruction of the teacher. They are more for the benefit of the school, since they are used for general abilities versus a course grade. They are also formal since they acquire data and use statistics to be scored.
A test can have poor validity in that it may not show the actual intelligence and capability of a student. Standardized tests assess certain areas, but a student pay perform poorly but still be cognitively advanced (just have a disability or trouble taking the test) or have knowledge and skills within another area not tested.

These tests could prove to be inequitable in that they do no account for the teacher, preparation or environment in which the test is given. This could influence the grades of students and not account for their actual abilities.

Blog Post 2

A typical standardized test is a formal, summative assessment that is not based on performance. We can tell because the tests are preplanned and are used to measure the knowledge students have on the given subjects, which makes it formal. It is summative because it is used to assess how well a teacher is conveying the material. They are used as means to assess the teach as well as the student. 

An assessment can be reliable but have poor validity. This means that the assessment very well could be ranking a child in a certain percentile based on their knowledge of the content, but it may not show the intelligence overall of that individual nor would it show the quality of the teacher conveying the material to students. For instance, standardized tests are usually multiple choice and have a set of answers students can choose from. The only answer scored is the answer the student circles. the tests do not show the process in which the student came to that answer. These tests do not show what te students need to work on specifically. 

Standardized tests are by no means 'standardized'. These tests are specifically designed for middle class individuals with a moderate education. the questions are extremely bias and assume that all schools have the same resources, which is not the case. One specific way that these types of tests are inequitable to some populations is when the tests give pictures or examples of globes or certain resources that not all schools can afford, students get these questions wrong because they don't know what the object is or how it is used. Also, the wording in many cases may be too confusing for some students who are at a lower reading level than they should be at their grade. 

Issues in Standardized Testing Post 2

I think that a standardized test is a formal formative assessment. It is formal because it is something that is planned in advance and the teachers and students are given plenty of time to prepare for the test. It is formative because it gives the teachers and school system feedback and ways that they could improve the curriculum or teaching methods.

An assessment can be reliable, but also have poor validity. A test can be reliable by giving you an idea of what the students are understanding and what they are not quite comprehending. At the same time, these tests might not have completely valid results. The results could have been skewed by many factors. Stress, biased test questions, or poor test construction in general are all factors that could contribute to the test results not being valid.

For the most part, standardized tests do tend to be standardized. I believe that every student is given the approximately the amount of preparation materials for the test. Each student is given the exact same test and the exact same time to finish the test. One group of people that the test might not be standardized for could be students that have disabilities. Their disabilities hinder the way that they are able to take test and sometimes prohibit them from taking a standardized test all together.

Issues in Standardized Testing Post 1

One information processing technique that is helpful is maintenance rehearsal. There are pros and cons to using this techniques to prepare students for testing. One of the pros is that if a students rehearses the information enough, it will become automatic and will be much easier to retrieve during the test. The cons to using this technique for teaching is that this method does not always connect the material to other experiences in the child's life. Therefore, the information is not always encoded in the student's long term memory.

It is very possible for a high stakes test to cause learned helplessness in a child. Students spend a lot of time preparing for the standardized test. It is very possible that a student who does the preparations could have other factors that cause them to receive a bad grade. This might result in a student feeling as if no matter how hard they prepare, they will never be able to score high on any standardized test.

A consistent learning goal that could be used when teaching for a standardized test would be something along the lines of the students being able to correctly answer questions that require them to retrieve pieces of information from their memory. Students could be assessed on this learning goal by teachers giving then practice quizzes and pop quizzes to test how well they can retrieve the information.

Issues in Standardized Tests Post 2

A standardized test is a formal formative test because it provides the teacher with feedback on what the students have learned, and it is not a test over an entire chapter/book/unit.  It is a test over a collection of things that should have been learned by the students up to this point.  It is formal because it is planned and prepared for and it is formative because it provides the teacher with information and feedback.

An assessment can be reliable and have poor validity because while showing you what the students have learned and what they are still struggling with, but it can have poor validity because of the way the test is constructed.  A standardized test sometimes has poor validity because of the stress added on when taking a high stakes standardized test.  It also could be biased, therefore, creating an unbalanced playing field for each student.

I think for the most part, standardized tests are standardized.  But one population I can think of that might not be equally represented would be students with functioning disabilities taking the same test.  Disabilities such as dyslexia, ADHD, and others, can be at a disadvantage because of their disability.

Issues in Standardized Testing Post 1

Mnemonics is a useful information processing technique that is helpful for memorization because it allows the students to make connections between the information learned and information previously learned.  During testing, this is important because triggers associated with mnemonic will allow the student to remember answers.  A con of this way of learning is that while remembering the mnemonic, often times the actual meaning or process is not learned- just the mnemonic will be remembered.

High stakes standardized tests can cause learned helplessness in the classroom.  If a student has previously done poorly on a standardized test, he/she may have it in his/her mind that they will not do well on the upcoming exam.  Their lack of self confidence creates learned helplessness because they are not willing to attempt to improve and/or learn.  Also, seeing that they advanced and weren't penalized for failing a standardized test could take away the motivation that they would have had before.

I think that social cognitive theory would be beneficial for teacher teaching specifically to pass the standardized test.  The teachers would be modeling proper test taking strategies, as well as, providing them with activities/worksheets that will be similar to the test they will be taking.  Practice tests and worksheets will be the main source of learning because it will better prepare the students for the actual test.

Issues in Standardized Testing Prompt 2

They are usually formal summative tests that are not based on performance. You can tell this because the tests are preplanned and to assess what the student has learned (formal). They are used to see the progress of a student and how well a teacher is teaching (summative). They also do not include anyone viewing the students performing a skill.

These tests can reliably measure what a student does and does not know, but they do not accurately assess what a student really needs to know. These tests ask questions based on right or wrong answers, they do not assess the students thinking strategies or thought processes.

These tests might be inequitable to the special education population because some sp. ed. students do not learn the same way as general ed. students. Sp. ed. students might not be able to read as well as others, and might not have enough time to even finish the test.

Issues in Standardized Testing Prompt 1

Mnemonics:

-          Pro:   The students will easily be able to remember this information in the mnemonic form for a test because it organizes and forms relationships with other information.

-          Con:  The student will memorize the mnemonic and not learn the concepts of the information displayed in the mnemonic.

A student might be really intelligent in the classroom, but she gets anxiety when taking tests, especially a high stakes test. If she does not pass this high stakes test then she is required to receive accommodations. If the student is given these accommodations when she does not need them learned helplessness can occur. When the student is given these easy alternatives she might act like she’s not as intelligent so that she can take the easy way out. She is also not being challenged when given these accommodations, so she learns to act like she is not as intelligent.

A consistent learning goal for standardized tests would be to make sure that students are taught all required material that would be on a standardized test. To do this a teacher’s instructional strategies would have to contain no hands on activities and they could not contain any teaching that does not satisfy the standards.

Standardized testing post 2

Standardized test are a summative assessment that is used to measure the students knowledge up to that point. They are summative because they are used to gauge where the student is in different subject areas against the curriculum and other students. Standardized test can be reliable, in the fact that all students are taking the same test at the same time in third grade English class. Though, the test itself may have inconsistencies throughout the language or references that different ethnic groups, or minority groups have been exposed to leading them to get the answer wrong. If students in these minority or ethnic groups have a disadvantage because the test is targeted to middle class white Indiana, it is not fair to the students who miss questions due to how it addresses the question. Therefore, it is not equitable for all students to take the “standardized” test if is not equal for all students to take the exam. Students that move from state to state because of poverty may not have had the same standards from another state there for it would not be fair to test them against students who have not. 

Issues in Standardized Testing Prompt 2

The typical standardized test, something like ISTEP, is a formative kind of assessment because it is used to assess not only the students, but how well the teachers do their job. It is also used to help teachers know how to grow in their own teaching and focus on areas that their students are lacking in. This is the case only when teachers have access to the specific results of standardized testing and which areas were weak and which were strong. This type of assessment is also very formal because it is an individual process that is very quiet and structured.

An assessment can give you information that is consistent with what you believe the level of skills the student being assessed actually has. This kind of assessment would also keep results consistent across all students of the same level and in this way be a very reliable assessment. But this kind of assessment might not measure everything you really want to make sure your students learned and so it might not be a valid assessment. An example of this might be asking questions on a test that are misleading or trying to trick students with questions. This might help separate the students that take things seriously from those who do not, but it will not help get an accurate assessment of what the students know. Another example would be asking questions that have not been discussed in class.

Standardized tests are not always as 'standard' as they claim to be. Students with disabilities are obviously at a disadvantage because they are usually behind developmentally and academically and so they might feel inadequate as a student upon seeing the results of their test. Students who do not have English as their first language will also be at a disadvantage because the test is not in their primary language so they might take longer to answer questions that would be easy for students proficient in English.

Standardized Testing - Post 2

Typically, standardized testing in the classroom is a formal summative assessment. The assessment is summative because it shows what the students have learned up to that point in their education. The test is graded and then the scores are given out to the students. The test is formal because it is planned in advance and a specific period of time is set aside for this testing.

Standardized tests can be reliable but have poor validity. This is because the test can be deemed reliable when it shows consistent scores but the test may not be valid because it has not measured what it is meant to measure.

Standardized tests may not actually be equitable to every student. Some of the questions are going to be biased toward one race or ethnicity over another. Some students may have a difficult time answering questions on these stantardized tests because the questions may be worded in a way that they aren't used to.

Standardized Testing Prompt 2

Typically, standardized tests are considered to be a formal summative assessment.  They are summative because they are testing the students' ability to understand and retain all of the information from a particular instruction period.  Usually, standardized tests are given in February or March; this means that the students have an entire semester of material that they have learned that year and all of this is fair game on these tests.  This requires the students to be able to remember what they have already learned in the previous months of that year.  These tests can be considered formal because they are given on a specific day with specific instructions as to how to administer them (the words to use, setting of test, etc.).  This makes it formal because essentially every student taking the test is taking it under the same conditions.

Standardized tests can be reliable but not valid.  If the scores on the test are consistent, this test can be considered reliable.  If the test does not accurately measure what the intended reason for the test is though, then it is not valid.  Also, tests that target one group of people and neglect the rest have poor validity.  For example, if a test talks about a topic that can only be seen in affluent communities, then tests that are administered to lower socioeconomic communities might not do as well simply because they didn't understand the question.

Standardized tests are, in fact, not standardized.  Many times, schools in wealthier areas that have many resources for their students receive the higher scores while lower income schools don't do well.  This could simply be because they don't have the resources or motivation to learn the material as well as the wealthier schools do.  Standardized tests are also written for students who do not have any learning disabilities.  This can hurt a student who does have a learning disability because they might not have enough time to complete the test.  Students of other cultures might also have difficulties completing standardized tests due to a language barrier

Module 30 Blog post 2

A typical standardized test is a formal summative assessment because it is normally testing a student’s knowledge after the material is already learned to see what they know.  This is a way for school districts to assess the progress of students in a formal way.  They are formal because they’re in a test setting, pre-planned, and students have time to prepare. 

An assessment can be reliable but have poor validity.  Reliability refers to the consistency of test results while validity refers to the extent to which an assessment actually measures what it is intended to measure.    Just because the assessment can is reliable and contains consistent test scores no matter how many times it is taken, doesn’t mean that the assessment shows validity and measures what is supposed to be measured.  Test might not be valid if they are bias to certain cultural groups. An example of a test that is reliable but not valid would be a teacher giving students a test on the names of different shapes that was learned in first grade when the students are now in third grade.  The students may all get consistent grades every time they take the test, but the test isn’t valid because it’s covering material that should already be mastered. A valid test would contain new material on shapes and higher level concepts since they're now in an older grade and should know third grade standards of shapes.

Tests may not be standardized for all cultural groups.  According to the reading research shows that American-born ethnic groups don’t have a disadvantage on well-constructed tests.  But students who are from different cultural groups might face questions that they can’t answer because it’s presented in a group-specific way or the wording may be unfamiliar.  By having some standardized tests be culturally biased, students from other cultural groups may have more difficulties with certain questions making these tests not equitable for all students.