Chapter 3 on Testing
Wagner has mentioned how majority of high school students are unprepared for the college, the workforce and to function in America's democracy. It is because the education system has been solely focusing on testing the students on their memorization or ability to regurgitate information. The strong emphasis of testing has taken the students and teachers away from developing and practicing critical thinking, writing and to ask questions. Testing the students by quizzes or multiple choice tests reveal narrow results as it only reveals how the students did on memorization but there is no thinking when they are asked to bubble in the right answer. It is more important to train the students to analyze documents, create their own questions, think critically and have the students learn the content themselves while the teacher is a facilitator. Each student is different, sees and thinks differently but the testing of quizzes does not reveal this. It just reveals who can get an A or an F based on memorization. Students need to be trained to break down a essay prompt, learn how to write a strong thesis, understand and annotate primary sources, research, and think and write analytically.
Wagner has mentioned how majority of high school students are unprepared for the college, the workforce and to function in America's democracy. It is because the education system has been solely focusing on testing the students on their memorization or ability to regurgitate information. The strong emphasis of testing has taken the students and teachers away from developing and practicing critical thinking, writing and to ask questions. Testing the students by quizzes or multiple choice tests reveal narrow results as it only reveals how the students did on memorization but there is no thinking when they are asked to bubble in the right answer. It is more important to train the students to analyze documents, create their own questions, think critically and have the students learn the content themselves while the teacher is a facilitator. Each student is different, sees and thinks differently but the testing of quizzes does not reveal this. It just reveals who can get an A or an F based on memorization. Students need to be trained to break down a essay prompt, learn how to write a strong thesis, understand and annotate primary sources, research, and think and write analytically.