onsdag den 10. august 2011

About testing and evaluation

Something that imediately jumped into our eyes is how the South African schoolsystem – both at the university and in the township schools – tests everything. It all comes down to marking your work and testing your knowledge in factual stuff. E.g. in the township school, where the learners made assignments almost everyday and the teachers marked them with a signature, without even looking at the actual work. We had the same experience today in our english language lecture, where we had prepared an assigment – spending a long time, wanting to do it well. But the lecturere didn’t even look at it. It felt wierd spending so much time on something that, when it came down to it, didn’t even matter. The teachers and lectureres use a lot of time explaining examns, test, assignments and marking – underlining the importance of it and handing it in on time. In another lecture we had a test, even before we had had any actual lessons or teaching in this subject.
The funny thing is that even though they make a big deal out of the importance of testing, when it comes down to it, it seems as though it’s more of a formal thing than the actual substance.
Testing and results are also becomming more and more a part of the danish school system. Not in the same way as in South Africa, but it seems like it’s going in that direction. The reason why we test in Denmark - thats what the politicians say anyway – is so that we can compete and compare internationally.
We’re left wondering why testing is becomming so common, and why it is necessary? Might the testing block some of the students ability to reflect individualiy, in order to fulfill these exact tests and demands?
We’re not only negative towards testing, because it can also be a motivating factor, we acknowledge that. But in Denmark we talk a lot about teaching the students individually, because their learning styles are different.  So the question remains: Can a test capture the more than just right or wrong answers? Is a test able to capture the abtract and creative thinking of the individual learner/student?

Dorte and Sabine

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