Much to my surprise, today's ASCD daily email included an article from one of my local newspapers: The Harrisburg Patriot-News! The article discusses the emphasis put on state testing.
I can't remember if I've complained about state testing here yet. Indiana has moved the multiple choice part of their state test (the ISTEP+) online. This created a huge mess at my school. Not only do we have to rearrange the school schedule so the kids can test, but we have to find a working computer for each child AND have a mandatory practice session. Throw in a IT person who is practically impossible to get in touch with, and you have a recipe for disaster.
I contemplated doing some in class research this year on the effects of taking tests on computers. Now, I really wish I had, so I could discuss my findings here. State tests are stressful enough on their own. Making kids take them on computers is just cruel. The program seems outdated. When I took the GRE online it was better than this, and that program was so old it assumed the taker might not know how to use a computer mouse! If you'd like to experience the ISTEP, click here. My students are in grade 8, so select 6-8. Read about the tools, and then click "Start the test" at the top of the page. This is take you to a log in screen. Ignore the username and password, and simply click "log in" to begin. Comment and let me know what you think about the ISTEP Experience!
The little dancing person distracts me.
ReplyDeleteThe ruler sucks. Sucks sooooo bad.
But overall, better than some things I can imagine. The x to say you think it's wrong is nice, as is the 'you are here' at the bottom.
But it seems to load kinda slow, and I imagine this would piss of children who are stressed about the time limit anyway...
Did you play with the highlighter? You can just re-highlight until the entire page is yellow! A lot of the teachers are worried the kids will get distracted playing around with the tools instead of using them.
ReplyDelete