Standardized Testing is Still Failing Students

If you didn’t answer “all of the above,” then: A. 你一直没专心，或者B. 你在一家测试软件公司工作.

菠菜导航网大多数人都知道这一点 standardized tests are inaccurate, inequitable, and often ineffective 衡量学生的实际知识. 好消息是, there’s a better way:  Performance-based assessment provides an essential piece of the puzzle in measuring student 成长th.

What is Performance-Based Assessment (PBA)?

This system of learning and assessment allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skill through critical-thinking, 解决问题, 协作, and the application of knowledge to real-world situations. In other words, it helps students prepare for college, career, and life.

PBA also allows educators to create more engaging instruction and address learning gaps by observing over time. And it helps them gather well-rounded information to better support their students’ success—a far cry from the “drill and kill” of state and federal standardized tests.

PBA can mean asking students to compose a few sentences in an open-ended short response; 在一篇文章中进行全面的分析; conduct a laboratory investigation; curate a portfolio of student work; or complete an original research paper.

Younger students may design experiments, write poems, or create art that demonstrate concepts. 

“PBA allows students more choice in how they can show what hey’ve learned, and it allows differentiated instruction for different learning styles,莫利·马林诺夫斯基说, a first-grade teacher at Lynch Elementary School, 在温彻斯特学区, 在马萨诸塞州. “Standardized tests don’t allow choice because it’s one-size-fits-all. 学生可能有知识, but may not be able to show what they know and understand on the test. 他们可以在PBA中证明这一点.” 

内置的分化

One of Malinowski’s favorite math assessments focuses on addition, using numbers from 0 through 20. 她介绍了这个概念和, 以探究为基础的教学, presents lessons and talks about strategies. As students pose questions or problems, the process ignites their curiosity. At the end of the unit, they have an “addition celebration.”

She starts by building fluency and then asks students to share their 解决问题 strategies with the class.

“的 best part is that they get to show their learning in a lot of different ways,” Malinowski says. “为了这个数学标准, 他们制作了一个视频, 一张海报, 录音, 一个mini-play, 或者是一篇文章. Students have a voice in how they demonstrate their learning.” 

PBA allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skill through critical-thinking, 解决问题, 协作, and the application of knowledge to real-world situations. In other words, it helps students prepare for college, career, and life.

And when they share with the class, that helps reinforces everyone’s learning, she explains. None of this is possible in an individual test.

“With this kind of instruction and assessment, we can … offer targeted support,” she says. “Some students will want to create their own piece of work, 而其他人则需要更多的脚手架, 这样我就能看到谁在学习什么了.”

在她学校的每个学术领域, from math to language arts to science and social studies, 拥有个人执业资格证书.

“We’ve been encouraged to take time to develop PBAs for our grade level, 开发和调整它们, and trying them out and making edits as we go,她补充道. 

序列，而不是快照

Malinowski teaches in one of eight public school districts participating in the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA).

MCIEA is a partnership between these school districts and their local teachers unions, who are working together to create a fair and effective accountability system, offering a more dynamic picture of student quality and learning than a single standardized test. 

“的 first objective of MCIEA is to measure  student learning in a way that relies on teacher-created, classroom-embedded, performance assessments rather than externally created standardized assessments,MCIEA联合创始人杰克·施耐德说. “的 second objective is to measure school quality in a way that is more holistic, 有效的, 比标准化考试更民主.”

的 consortium’s framework goes beyond test scores and graduation and absentee rates, instead focusing on multiple measures of student engagement and achievement, 还有学校环境.

“It’s a more equitable system that doesn’t punish marginalized students,” Schneider explains.

的 current data used to measure student success, 增加了施耐德, 与种族密切相关, 收入, 以及家庭教育程度. It really only tells us about advantage and disadvantage outside school, 而不是学校实际在做什么.

“We want to capture all of the things that show student learning and achievement, not just this tortuously narrow vision that is embedded in the current system,他说. 

“Where in the data is student engagement, 他们的归属感, 表演艺术, 或者公民能力的发展?他问道。. “存在巨大的差距. So many of the current variables are just demographics in disguise.”

On a standardized test, there is only one right answer. 其他答案都是错的. But educators know when students are engaged in authentic and meaningful tasks, they can arrive at answers that are not entirely wrong or entirely right.

“We’d never give someone a standardized test to see if they can fly an airplane,” Schneider says. “PBA can show us much more effectively what a student knows that actually reflects the complexity of knowing and doing something.”

公平竞争

Alissa Holland is an instructional coach in the Milford Public Schools district, 在马萨诸塞州, one of the districts participating in the MCIEA.

“Standardized tests create test anxiety and some kids even have test phobia because they have just this one chance at getting it right,霍兰德说。, 谁在史黛西中学工作. “PBA allows students to ask more questions and bounce ideas around, which reduces anxiety without reducing rigor."

PBA also removes bias and creates more equity. 例如, Holland recalls a state standardized test question about decomposition for eighth-grade science: “的 question asked about grass clippings after mowing the lawn, and students got hung up on ‘grass clippings,’” she says. “Some had no idea what they were because they either lived in apartments and had no lawns, or they had lawns but didn’t mow them because they had landscapers.”

分解的PBA, 另一方面, would allow students to show their learning by demonstrating it with something they’re familiar with—grass clippings, 苹果核, 或者公园里的树叶——在一个图表里, 散文或诗歌, 或艺术作品. Students can show much more of their knowledge over time, 以他们选择的形式, 而不是某一天, 在一个测试问题上, 只有一个答案是正确的, 荷兰解释说.

“Working on a PBA shows 成长th while inspiring a 成长th mindset,” Holland says.

Her colleague Dan Cote, a social studies teacher in the same district, agrees. Nobody likes to regurgitate everything they know on a single test,  he says.

“的 PBA process acknowledges that learning happens in different stages, where we can give feedback and build skills during the assessment,科特说。. “It also increases engagement because students walk in the shoes of a geographer or historian, with tasks that mimic real world activities.”  

加强与学生的关系

Standards and rubrics don’t always call for 协作, and there’s certainly no teamwork on a test, 但在PBA, students often work in  groups that build critical social skills.

When Cote’s students learn about earlier civilizations, they form teams of four and decide together what time period and landscape their civilization would inhabit. 

“的y have tough decisions to make and problems to solve, 比如农民的法律, 如何应对自然灾害, what they should invest in as a civilization,科特解释道. 

“的n each student writes their version of what happened, like a historian would—which demonstrates how easily bias occurs when the students read the other students’ varying versions of the same events.”

的n the students create artifacts from their civilizations, and their classmates try to guess which civilization each student inhabited.

At the end of every PBA, Cote debriefs with the class.

“Students always say that working together was the best part,他说. 这对老师来说是最好的部分, 太, because it helps them build stronger relationships with students. 

“We gain so much more when we can hear their thoughts,科特说。. “这不是考试成绩的问题.”