The pandemic has fundamentally changed teaching and learning in the U.S.
When it comes to evaluating students, educators are re-evaluating the role that tests and quizzes have in the classroom.
As part of our Learning Curve series, we take a look at how testing has become a dirty word in education, and why it鈥檚 still essential to learning.
Jennifer Walton-Fisette is an education professor at Kent State University - she teaches teachers - and she has an unofficial rule in the classroom, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 ever use the word testing.鈥�
Instead, she prefers "assessment."
鈥淚f we use the word testing it鈥檚 more about the standardized tests,鈥� Walton-Fisette said.
Learning By doing
is so by teachers, students, school administrators and educators that the word "test" has become distasteful.
But should all tests be tainted by the same stigma?
That could be the case after the lockdown forced educators to rethink traditional teaching tools.
鈥淚 think the pandemic has gotten us to take a step back and saying what鈥檚 really important, what really matters, what should we be teaching and what should we be assessing on," Walton-Fisette said.
Shaker Heights High School, has taken tests off the table.
鈥淚鈥檝e absolutely deemphasized traditional assessments in every class this year,鈥� he said.
He says there鈥檚 no way to fairly test kids who鈥檝e spent a year in remote and hybrid learning.
Today鈥檚 teaching requires a different vocabulary, 鈥淎nd the language I鈥檝e been using all year here at Shaker Heights High School is we need to shift to .鈥�
Students engage in hands-on projects, like German classes translating documents and letters from a Holocaust survivor.
鈥淎nd that鈥檚 a far better way to assess learning than a paper and pencil test or in a pandemic a traditional Google doc test,鈥� Juli said.
Walton-Fisette uses to facilitate hands-on learning.
A rubric is simply a list of criteria that lays out expectations.
She said it offers a clear set of goals for students.
"They should know exactly what's expected of them and what they're evaluated on," she said.
"I have a rubric for every assignment that they do," Walton-Fisette said.
Forget Testing, Try Retrieval Practice
But not every educator believes "test" is a four letter word.
UCLA cognitive psychologists Elizabeth Bjork and her husband Robert are pioneers in .
鈥淭esting has become a dirty word to a lot of teachers and educators,鈥� she acknowledged, but counters that .
That said, even the Bjorks have another word for testing.
They call it "."
Robert Bjork said shows testing, , can improve learning.
He said the act of retrieving information rearranges the architecture in the brain.
鈥淲hen you recall something, you did more than just reveal that it was in your memory. It changed things,鈥� Bjork said.
And learning, he said, is paradoxically linked to .
鈥淎s you recalled something you not only made it more recallable in the future, but made things in competition with it less recallable,鈥� Bjork said.
He said done right, testing can ripen knowledge through cycles of forgetting and remembering.
The Bjorks recommend , pre-tests, and quizzes.
Education researcher agrees.
鈥淟ong term retention is going to be a function of initial forgetting and relearning until you鈥檝e got it,鈥� Dunlosky said.
Successive Relearning And Repeat
Dunlosky co-runs the at Kent State University.
He also avoids the term "testing."
鈥淚 think students just get anxious when they hear that word,鈥� he said.
Instead, he employs "interventions."
鈥淵ou know mid-way through class I鈥檓 going to stop teaching and have each student turn to a partner and they have to explain to each other the last concept. That can be an intervention,鈥� Dunlosky said.
He鈥檚 also a big fan of flashcards.
鈥淪o you have a prompt on one side. You get it right you take it out. You miss it you put it in the back. Simple,鈥� Dunlosky said.
Every couple days, repeat it.
鈥淭he relearning is much less a struggle the second time, the third time it鈥檚 a lot less of a struggle, each relearning session you get a huge boost in your memory and knowledge,鈥� he said.
Dunlosky said the key to "" is for the information to sink in, then exert effort to recall it.
But when it comes to testing, 鈥淚 wish we could come up with a different name,鈥� he confides.
Dunlosky said testing is underutilized in teaching and learning, stigmatized by the awful association the word has earned.
This story is part of WKSU鈥檚 a statewide multimedia collaborative looking at the challenges and opportunities facing public education in Ohio.
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