The topic that I chose to focus on is the educational system in India. In India, they do not have many written tests for the students. "Portfolios provide a meaningful view of a student’s progress in learning. The concept of portfolio preparation should be thoroughly discussed with the students so that they understand the purpose
of the portfolio." In India, they keep track of how their children learn by keeping a portfolio of all of their work throughout the year. Their work is then assessed at the end of the year. This decreases the amount of stress and frustration in the children.
I believe that having children in all grades take pre-tests at the beginning of the year and then post-tests at the end of the year will prove to the teachers and the students what they have learned. This may take extra time out of the school year, but it will show the progression in each of the children throughout the year. I also think that having schools go later, like until 5pm on Monday through Friday, will allow the teachers to cover more detail. In most schools now, they focus on mathematics and reading/writing. If science or social studies are taught, it is for one or two days out of the week and for a short period of time. Lastly, I think schools should focus more on exercise. The schools should give them challenges to do outside of school that require them to be active outside of school.
Kapur, K. (2008, 21). IAEA - The International Association for Educational Assessment. Retrieved February 14, 2013, from http://www.iaea.info/documents/paper_2b71209fa.pdf
Chelsea,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts!
I'm really interested in learning more about the portfolio preparation that is done in India. It does seem that keeping track of what students are learning throughout the year is important. It seems like a great organizational idea to keep the information in one place, but if they are not being assessed, how do teachers monitor if students are retaining information?
I completely agree with the testing in the beginning and then one at the end. I have seen too many districts stop teaching, focus on the material that will be on the test, and then resume teaching as though nothing happened. We are not showing if the students are learning anything. They are being tested on the subject once, tested, and then moved along to the next chapter without taking concern for if they mastered the material or not. I also agree that schools need to focus more on exercise. I know when I was in high school, I did the bare minimum to get by. Children these days are much lazier and need that extra push to put the remote or controller down and go outside to play.
ReplyDeleteChelsea, It is good to see the progress of a child throughout the years. I believe all children in some sort get nervous about test taking. Taking tests definitely was not my strength in school. If they would focus on certain topics at certain ages and keep repeating this information, I believe children would be more successful. Why is it, we can sing a song that we hear on the radio word by word? It's because we hear it over and over again. I believe this would be true in the school setting as well. I LOVE portfolios. Not only can children have these to show and share their progress, but they can look at them to relearn information and build their knowledge. Extending school hours will allow students to spend more time on work, but it will also allow them to have fun and have their creative time. You talk about exercise. I have been a volleyball and softball coach for four years now and over those years I have seen such a decline in working hard, working out and being active. If every school would mandate lifting, or Zumba, or yoga, or wii fit classes after school, we would see these kids doing more than just sitting on their iPhone or computer,
ReplyDeleteChelsea,
ReplyDeleteYou discussed how children are tested so much and how can they retai the information. Under the current system I think it's hard for children to retain information in the way teachers are teaching to the test. I think it would be better if the school year built on itself. By this I mean, what they children do in the first part of the year needs to be incorporated into things throughout the school year so that they can retain it longer. If we cram for a test the information goes into short term memory, if it's information that we have to keep recalling, it gets stored into our long term memory.