I believe if we revisit how testes are administered by making them active and engaging we may see better results. And if we provide questions that allow children to relate to their culture, beliefs, experiences, and surroundings while blending knowledge of academics, we may see the true measurement of the IQ’s of our children. No one child is the same, thinks the same, learn the same or test the same. We need a more diverse and active test. “Learning the tool skills of reading, writing, arithmetic and computers brings work to the forefront. But play and love are still important. Children make the most progress when all three dispositions (play, love, work) are involved in their learning and instruction” (Elkind, 2007, pg. 121).
Europe
In Europe, I found an article called Re-assessing the current assessment practice of children with special education needs in Europe. They are reviewing how their children are being assessed and if it is affective testing especially for the special need children. There tests were primarily used only to determine if a child should be placed in a special needs classroom or school. The test did not provide them with opportunities to follow up on areas that showed weakness. Europe used the same standardized test that we use in the United States. These results are very similar to the findings that our test revealed. Studies are being done to fine a more effective way to assess children in Europe.
References
Elkind, D. P. (2007). The Power of Play. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.
Sage Journal s, Re-assessing the current assessment practice of children with special education needs in Europe. Retrieved 02/11/2012.@ http://spi.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/07/12/0143034311409975
I believe that there should be separate classrooms for children that suffer from special needs. That allows the special need child to receive proper attention and assistance as a normal child would.
ReplyDeleteHi Katrice,
ReplyDeleteI would love to see testing re-visit and evaluated. When I worked as a public school teacher I remember that in all the tests that I designed I always used different techniques. For example in tests, I used to ask children to draw a picture, answer a multiple choice, complete a match, and even oral parts if necessary. I tried to implement any technique that I knew could help the children in my classroom to show their knowledge and skills. Also, we would work in projects in the classroom I would ask them to bring the materials and instead of them working at home in projects we would make them in the classroom. I did this to make sure that the children were working on the skills and not the parents. I did not grade projects based in how pretty and neat they were, but if they were able to applied what was learned in class. When the system understands that you cannot evaluate, assess and teach every child in the same way then we would start seeing progress in our education system. By the way, I had a child that was very smart, but in tests, he would always do poorly. I decided to test him using oral techniques, and art projects and he did very well. His other teachers asked what I was doing, and I explained to them what I did, and they follow my advice, and he started doing better in all his tests. He does not only raise his grades, but his self-esteem and behavior improved a lot, as well.