by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 18, 2014 | Blog, Issues in Education
I have to say I never thought I’d write a post singing the virtues of multiple choice tests (well, sort of). Despite the fact that much of my professional life is dictated by such exams, I’ve never had any overwhelming liking for them. Rather, I’ve generally seen them as a necessary evil, a crudely pragmatic way of assessing fundamental skills on a very large scale. Sure, the logic and elimination aspects are interesting, but they’ve always in comparison to the difficulty of, say, teaching a student to write out a close reading of a passage in their own words. People might argue that learning to do so in irrelevant (obviously I disagree, but I’m not going into that here), but basically no one is disputing that it’s hard. At any rate, I’ve always assumed that given the alternative between an essay-based test and a multiple-choice one, the former would invariably be superior. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 16, 2014 | Blog, Issues in Education
People seem to be throwing around the term “rote learning” a whole lot these days in regard to the SAT, without any apparent understanding of what it actually means. So in a modest — and perhaps vain — attempt at cutting through some of this linguistic obfuscation, I offer the following explanation.
This is an example of a question that tests rote knowledge:
The dates of the American Civil War were:
(A) 1849-1853
(B) 1855-1860
(C) 1861-1865
(D) 1866-1871
(E) 1872-1876
This question does not require any thought whatsoever, nor does it require the answerer to have any actual knowledge of the American Civil War beyond when it occurred. It is simply necessary to have memorized a set of dates, end of story. This is what “rote learning” actually means — memorizing bits and pieces of information, devoid of context, and without consideration of how those particular bits and pieces of information fit into a larger context. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 12, 2014 | Blog, Issues in Education, The New SAT
There are many, many things I could say about the overhaul of the SAT (coming to a testing center near you in 2016!), but I don’t want this to turn into an endless rant, and so I’ll do my best not to ramble on too long.
The elimination of the sentence completions and the 1/4 point penalty, as well the changes to the essay didn’t surprise me in the least; the combination of Reading and Writing into one section caught me a bit off guard, however. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. If more time is going to be allotted to the essay — the only possibility if you’re giving a more in-depth assignment — it’s going to get cut somewhere else. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 1, 2014 | Blog, Issues in Education
I’ve come up with a formula
The amount of time a curriculum devotes to teaching critical thinking is inversely proportional to the actual critical thinking skills that the students acquire.
Think of it this way:
Critical thinking skills can only develop as the result of accumulated subject-specific knowledge, not as the result of learning “critical thinking” strategies in the abstract.
The more time students spend learning formal processes (e.g. identifying the main point) designed to teach them “critical thinking” skills in the abstract, the less time they spend obtaining subject-specific knowledge (e.g. biology, history).
Thus, the more time students spend learning learning formal processes designed to teach them critical thinking skills, the less likely they are to acquire the very knowledge that would allow them to think critically.
Or to put it in mathematical terms, where CT is defined as actual critical thinking ability and ct is defined as abstract, formal processes designed to promote “critical thinking:”
CT ? 1/ct
by Erica L. Meltzer | Feb 28, 2014 | Blog, Issues in Education
As long as I’m in full-out combat mode… One more snipe.
Plenty of people love to hate the SAT because of the purported lack of “critical thinking” it requires.
But what about the other side?
I’ve had more than one parent tell me that their child does wonderfully on tests in school because they can just memorize things and spit them back, then forget those things as soon as they’re done.
They say this as if it is a good thing. (For the record, this is not the sort of content-based education I support.) (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Nov 8, 2013 | Blog, Issues in Education
Education is in the news a lot these days. With the increasing reliance on standardized testing at all grade levels and the implementation of Common Core standards, there’s suddenly a lot of concern about where American schools are headed; and as someone with a significant interest in educational issues, I pay a lot of attention to what people are saying. Reading through education articles and the accompanying comments, many of which bemoan the lack of I’m struck by the extent to which ideas about education have become polarized: on one side, joyless, dry, rote learning, devoid of imagination or interest, with no other end than the thoughtless regurgitation of facts; on the other side, a sort of kumbaya, free-to-be-you-and-me utopia, where learning is always an imaginative and exciting process with no wrong answers or unpleasantness. (more…)
