Impact of Standardized Testing

1. Impact of Standardized Testing By: Megan Madigan

2. What is the impact of standardized testing on student? • How do students benefit from being put into a class with students all at the same level? • “…students of low ability actually perform worse when they are placed in homogenous groups with students of low ability-as opposed to students of low ability placed in heterogeneous groups” (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2007).

3. Personal Experience • Test taking was always a struggle for me. • For me standardized test were very intimidating • I remember when I was in second grade and we had to take one of the standardized tests, I laid my head down on the desk and started to cry because I was so overwhelmed and defeated from the process.

4. My colleagues face pressure • Teachers are expected to administrate the MAP test three times a year. • They are very overwhelmed with this type of testing and it takes away from their teaching time

5. Literature Review • In the book How people learn by the National Research Council in states the importance of feedback to students especially during early development • However, standardized do not provide immediate feedback to students. Most of the time students and their families do not receive the results of a standardized test until a year later when the data is no longer relative.

6. Literature Review Cont. • Pressure leads many teachers to only focus on testing topics and teach their students how to memorize equations or procedures rather than really learning the process. • One mathematics teacher consistently produced students who scored high on statewide examinations by helping students memorize a number of mathematical procedures that typically appeared on the examination, but the students did not really understand what they were doing, and often could not answer questions that required an understanding of mathematics” (National Research Council, 2000).

7. Literature Review Cont. • In my Models of Teaching book by Jeanine M. Dell’Olio and Tony Donk they suggest that the state and federal government should use the testing data to gage the effectiveness of the district-wide programs • “State-mandated summative assessment should be seen as part of a total assessment program at the local and classroom level. Teachers and districts can combine the data from these tests with a variety of other measures to gage the effectiveness of district-wide strategies and materials in promoting learning related to state content standards and benchmarks” (Dell’Olio & Donk, 2007)

8. Conclusion • I believe that they can be a great tool to determine the effectiveness of district-wide programs. • I do not feel that they should determine a student’s standard in their school or track them into a certain educational level. Nor, should these types of tests be used to determine a teachers and schools effectiveness to teach.

9. References • Dell”Olio, J. & Donk, T. (2007). Models of teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. • Marzano, R., Pickering, D., & Pollock, J. (2001) Classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. • National Research Council. (2000). How people learn. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. • Pressley, M., & McCormick, C. (2007). Child and adolescent development for educators. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.