Assignment task:
Step 1:
State what you believe about standardized testing. You must be able to effectively communicate your teaching philosophies to your family and community. An effective way to do this is through social media. Specifically, Twitter is a social media tool that can be used to mitigate contact between the school and families. For Step 1 of this discussion forum, you will create a fake social media tweet of 280 characters. For the purposes of this discussion forum, you will not include photos, GIFs, or video. In your tweet state your belief about standardized testing and how you came to have this belief. Please state your honest opinion. It is okay to share how you feel as we engage in civil discourse.
Step 2:
First, read two articles on the topic of standardized testing from the list below:
- Making Sense of Early Childhood Assessment - Four Things to Consider.
- Test Critics Fail the Test: Critics of Testing Don't Understand the Basics of Testing.
- Effect of Perceived Job-Related Stress on Teacher Job Satisfaction in a High-Stakes Testing Environment.
- Standardized Testing Can Be Good-But Only if We Put Students First.
Next, you will reflect on the articles you just read and examine them using the 4 C's: Connections, Challenges, Concepts, and Changes. This section should be a minimum of three to four paragraphs:
- What connections do you draw between the articles you have read and your professional experiences or your other learning?
- What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you want to agree or disagree with in the articles you have chosen? Which do you want to challenge?
- What key concepts about standardized testing do you think are important from the articles you have chosen? What ideas are worth holding on to from the articles? Be specific because you will need this information for the next part of your discussion.
- What changes in attitudes, thinking, or action are suggested by the articles for you or others?
Step 3:
You have just spent time synthesizing your thoughts on standardized testing. First, you tweeted your view. Next you reflected after reading two articles' varying views of standardized test. Please provide three to five sentences stating the following:
- Did your opinion about standardized testing change from your original tweet?
- Explain why or why not. What influenced your opinion to change or stay the same?