From: Clint O'Dell (clintodell@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 07 1999 - 12:06:41 MDT
>The trouble with preventing teachers from allocating the credentials
>themselves is that it makes it impossible for the teacher to grade based on
>performance in class.
>"Who cares," you might ask, "so long as the student passes the test(s)?"
>The trouble with THIS attitude is that it promotes cramming, as students do
>no work during the year, cram to pass the test, and then forget the
>material. Providing incentives to work throughout the year is a valuable
>part of the educational process.
They will have to work throughout the year to do well on the tests I
propose. Also teachers will need to adopt some new motivational strategies
to stay competitive. If students in one school are cramming it will show
when compared with students who don't and get better scores. The teachers
can look into the modivational and teaching strategies the more successful
schools use.
>There's still room for a private credential organization, but ideally it'd
>be one that gave tests once a month, or ideally bi-weekly, on a
>progression of material, up until the final. However, once you're talking
>about bi-weekly standardized exams, the administrative costs may begin to
>increase rapidly.
I was picturing yearly tests. There is a lot of material to cover in one
year. It is very unlikely to have any cramming strategy that will make a
difference on a test covering a years worth of material with fill in the
blank, descriptive answer tests. In my opinion essays are the best way to
test a persons understanding while multiple guess doesn't show anything
about what a person knows about the material. Also, the tests will go over
many different subjects. Some subjects many students may not have learned
yet to off set those schools who go above and beyond curriculum.
With test answers being hand written, we will need a large staff to go
through them and check the answers manualy, for the moment. In the future
we should have AI programs that can do this for us.
On motivation and teaching strategies I like to see material at work. I
think there should be more practicle real world application problems for
every piece of material taught. Today schools teach application be
measuring heights of ladders from triangulation. To me that's not important
because I never measure heights of ladders like that. It's faster and more
efficient to eye it and make an educated guess from memory of distances.
Instead students should build houses (or something along the lines of
engineering) to teach geometry and other subjects. I recommend VR. Initual
start-up costs will be high but then we don't have to by materials or pay
for field trips afterwards. Also, we can safely "interact" with the
environment and make learning a lot more fun and insightful.
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