Standardized Tests in Education

Among students who actually have to take standardized tests, the misconception that these tests evaluate intelligence is all too common. They categorize and rank their peers according to their scores- a good score means you are "smart", a low score means you are "stupid". The authority and validity of the test itself is rarely brought into question. Students spend months in needless anxiety over these tests which they perceive as determining their future; to a certain extent, they are right. The college application and acceptance system take standardized test scores, especially the ACT and SAT, into serious consideration when looking at applicants. I think that the way that many universities weigh test scores so heavily reinforces the concepts of school and testing that most students develop by high school- that school is a series of hoops to jump through and the end goal of school is to get high test scores.

Standardized tests can be, however, a useful tool for assessing where students stand on different subject compared to their peers on national, state, and local scales- if the tests are valid and reliable, that is. Assuming the standardized tests are both valid and reliable, I think standardized tests have a place in education, but I don't think they should count for anything. What they measure should not be such an important criterion for college admittance.

Classroom Management Part 2

Even the best run classroom will inevitably give rise to the occasional behavior problem. If it is one student causing the problem and it's relatively minor, I would pose a short discussion question about the material from that day to the class and have them talk about it in small groups, and then, as discretely as possible, talk to the problem student one-on-one and tell them that I need them to stop whatever the problem behavior was. At this stage, I won't make threats or talk about consequences. By keeping it individual, I won't interrupt the flow of the class and give opportunity for further distractions.

Motivation Part 2

In my last post on motivation, I touched on the idea of dogmatism, stating that I would encourage my students to not think dogmatically. I will have to present myself to students as an authority figure, but not someone whose word is to be taken without question or thought. Some students may already be disposed to non-dogmatic thinking, and will take it upon themselves to question me when I say something they disagree with. I will give these questions full and fair consideration, even re-directing the flow of the class to acknowledge the validity of their contention. By setting this example, other students will pick up on the idea and begin to raise questions when they are skeptical of something in the classroom, and when they do I will continue to encourage their independent thought by fairly considering what they have to say, and even conceding that I am mistaken if that's the case.

The classroom environment is critical to motivation, and peers play a large role in composing the classroom. With few exceptions, I will know little to nothing about my students before the year begins, and most often it will be nothing. I will begin the year with them sitting in traditional rows with random assigned seats for a few weeks, until I begin to get a feel for their personalities. After that, I will seemingly randomly re-assign seats, but I will carefully consider how the students personalities and levels of development will work together or not work together. By placing students in the best possible peer surroundings, they will be more motivated and also learn more because of the role of the more knowledgeable peer.

Motivational Factors

When I think about motivational factors in the classroom, my thoughts inevitably lead me to one fact: in a relatively short amount of time, I will spend in excess of 40 hours a week trying to motivate adolescents to engage themselves mentally in learning material that they frequently find difficult, often find boring, and that they may believe to be useless, irrelevant, or otherwise not worth their time. There are two aspects of the classroom that I have at my disposal to manipulate in order to make the curriculum appealing to students and appear worth learning: the material being presented, and the person presenting it (me).

As far as the material is concerned, most students recognize the inevitability that, however dull or difficult they may find a subject, they must get an acceptable grade in the class, even if for no other reason than to avoid taking it again. Thus, I will have to make the material mentally accessible to them. The best way I can think of to do this is to consider the learning theories, specifically developmental theories. If I consider DLT as much as possible, the curriculum will be presented in a manner that begins very concrete and gradually gets more abstract, yet still returns to concrete examples. At a basic level, the varying modes of representation will motivate most students to give the subject their attention.

Students' relationship with and perception of their teacher is another important factor of motivation. As a teacher, I will be a representation of authority to my students, and my interactions with them will affect their notions of dogmatism both in my class and in the future. I will avoid making the students' goal in the class gaining my approval, encouraging them instead to aim for comprehension. I don't want to be perceived as an arbitrator of knowledge but as a more knowledgeable peer who they also want to respect.

Classroom Management and the Learning Theories

Unless you're teaching preschool or kindergarten- and I'm not- students are going to have expectations; expectations about the material, the tests, and about how the class is run. For example, most teachers don't tolerate raised voices and yelling in the class, and so students will assume that you too will not tolerate it. This is not to say, however, that students will approach a new teacher the same way they behaved around previous teachers. At the beginning of the year, students will observe you and determine how the class is going to be run.


Through observing their behavior, using BLT, as a teacher I will determine what my student's expectations- their schemas- are for my behavior and classroom management. This is important because if my style of running a class doesn't fit into what they are used to, I will have to assimilate my management into what they're used to. If they are accustomed to a teacher who will ask a question, and then immediately answer it for students, I will have to slowly get them used to my method of waiting at least 10 seconds and giving students time to answer a question.

Reflections on my Lesson

Overall, I thought the lesson I taught, along with Lindsey and Emily, went well, and I enjoyed it. We considered Developmental Learning Theory first, and thought of different representations for our topic, social norms. We decided that the most concrete representation would be being in the presence of someone breaking a social norm. We considered assigning a few members of the class to break social norms throughout our lesson, without telling the rest of the class that it was part of our presentation. We decided that might be distracting, and would also push our time constraints. We settled on showing videos of people breaking norms first, and allowing the class to point out what they noticed. We would then move to an abstract representation by introducing the concept of a social norm, and defining it. We implemented Social Learning Theory next by having the class come up with examples of other social norms.

After that, we returned to concrete by using another video to display another example of a social norm being broken. After the video, we had a class discussion analyzing what norm was broken in the video. I appreciated the value of Social Learning Theory then, because by allowing the class to share their ideas first, they came up with answers that we hadn't thought of while making the video, but that were absolutely right.

We used one last video, demonstrating a social norm that is less obvious, and thus is violated fairly frequently. We showed a group of people waiting in line, and two people in the line were standing inappropriately close to the people in front of them. This is certainly a social norm- respecting personal space- but isn't a obvious one, and no one in the class could identify it after watching the video. By showing this example, we changed their concept, their schema of a social norm, implementing CLT.

Ed 107 Reflections

Thus far, this class has been an experience the likes of which I've only had twice before. That experience is being in a class where I'm not just learning new information, new facts, but where I'm rapidly learning new ways of thinking and new perspectives on learning.



In high school, there were two teachers with whom I had similar experiences. First, in AP European History, my teacher got a class of 25 sophomores genuinely excited about the Rennaisance, the French Revolution, the Unification of Germany, and just about every other topic we covered that year. From him, I learned to view history as one big net of interconnected stories. Those stories- whether it be the death of Louis XVI or the Italian conquests of Garibaldi- are all related and connected in ways too numerous and complex to ever fully understand. Two years later, Mr. Chierico showed me unique and novel, yet surprisingly simple, ways of looking at success and life. In Public Service Practicum, dubbed PSP, we organized our own fundraisers in small groups, managed every little detail, and saw the projects out through the end. Chierico gave me a concrete example of how the cliches I had been rolling my eyes at my whole life could be applied in a meaningful way. That anyone who worked hard enough could achieve greatness. In both classes, I left for summer with a significantly different outlook on academia, myself, and the web of life.

This class, more than any I've had so far, has revolutionized my thoughts on education. Previously, my assumptions were that I would be a good teacher because younger kids respond well to me and I'm  a fairly understanding, patient person. Now, I realize that the skills I had before were only the tip of an iceberg of educational techniques I would need to master.