Pupils perform better in tests if they are told the exercise is to help them learn rather than to rank them against their classmates, according to a new study.
Girls in particular benefit from seeing tests as an opportunity for learning rather than a competition, in subjects where they traditionally lag behind boys.
Presenting exams as part of the curriculum, rather than an exercise in comparing pupils against one another, could make them more effective and help teenagers reach their full potential, experts said.
Researchers from Clermont Université in France studied the best method of setting tests in science lessons – a subject where girls are often reported to score lower marks than boys.
(via Tests ‘should not rank pupils against one another’ - Telegraph)
The Danish minister of education is quoted: “I am happy that we as the first country in the world had the vision to let students use the internet during their exams. The internet is an integrated part of students’ everyday lives and education so this development is natural. The experiment shows there is a range of positive effects.
Shanghai is an exceptional case - and the [PISA] results there are close to what I expected. But what surprised me more [in China] were the results from poor provinces that came out really well. The levels of resilience are just incredible. In China, the idea is so deeply rooted that education is the key to mobility and success.
Scores of professors and researchers from 16 universities throughout the Chicago metropolitan area have signed an open letter to the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and Chicago school officials warning against implementing a teacher evaluation system that is based on standardized test scores.
This is the latest protest against “value-added” teacher evaluation models that purport to measure how much “value” a teacher adds to a student’s academic progress by using a complicated formula involving a standardized test score.
Researchers have repeatedly warned against using these methods, but school reformers have been doing it in state after state anyway.
The number of standardized tests students have to take is about to increase, but the according to a national survey from Scholastic and the Gates Foundation, the nation’s teachers overwhelmingly don’t see the high-stakes exams as essential.
The survey asked more than 10,000 educators about their classrooms, schools, and how student and teacher performances should be measured. A huge majority of teachers believe in measuring student achievement, but they believe it should be measured with a variety of assessments, not just standardized tests. (via Only 7 Percent of Teachers Believe in Standardized Tests - Education - GOOD)
Bright students are starting university unable to structure an essay because of the “damage” caused by test-driven schooling, Cambridge academics warned on Monday. (via Bright students ‘cannot write essays’, say Cambridge dons - Telegraph)
![[CHINA] Chinese students’ obsession with learning English is apparent. Chinese cities are littered with billboards and fliers for teaching institutes, and the demand for native-speaking teachers and tutors seems endless. For many, the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language, ranks second only to the infamous gaokao college entrance exam as a driver of candle-burning study habits.
Worried that this preoccupation with English is contributing to a decline in native language skills, officials at the Ministry of Education are now trying to get students to return to their linguistic roots. How? By introducing another test. (via In Battle to Save Chinese, It’s Test vs. Test - China Real Time Report - WSJ)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lscmu843S01qb8rnio1_500.jpg)
[CHINA] Chinese students’ obsession with learning English is apparent. Chinese cities are littered with billboards and fliers for teaching institutes, and the demand for native-speaking teachers and tutors seems endless. For many, the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language, ranks second only to the infamous gaokao college entrance exam as a driver of candle-burning study habits.
Worried that this preoccupation with English is contributing to a decline in native language skills, officials at the Ministry of Education are now trying to get students to return to their linguistic roots. How? By introducing another test. (via In Battle to Save Chinese, It’s Test vs. Test - China Real Time Report - WSJ)
Dar Es Salaam — Though children attending private schools have been found to perform better than those going to public schools, their performance was far from better, a survey by Uwezo East Africa has established. Surveys conducted in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda on quality of primary education showed that in Tanzania and Uganda, pupils attending private schools performed relatively poorly.
[ENGLAND] A writing test taken by 11-year-olds in England should be scrapped because it stops children being creative, a government review has found […] the writing test does not allow children to demonstrate their imagination because it looks for formulaic answers.
Teachers at some schools in China this year are taking what appears to be a more Western approach to calm their students, instead of piling on the stress as they usually do.
