Posts Tagged ‘ educational psychology ’

Is There an Assault on Public Education and (Science) Teaching

March 7, 2012

There is an unrivaled assault on the teaching profession. It emerged and has sustained itself when education policy makers convinced themselves that public education should be based on standards driven accountability model, combined with high-stakes testing.

The goal of this model of education is to improve student achievement test scores in mathematics, reading, and science. There is also a goal of decreasing the gap in achievement scores between white students and black and Hispanic students.… Read more

Will Technology Help Science Teachers Think Different?

By Jack Hassard

November 4, 2011

Will Technology Help Science Teachers Think Different?

I watched a lecture presented a couple of years ago by Allan Collins which was hosted by The Learning Sciences Group at Penn State, and organized by Penn State Professor Richard Duschl. The title of the talk was Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, and is title of Collins’ book, co-authored with Richard Halverson. The lecture is long, but you can scroll through the slides which accompany the video, and listen to various parts of the talk, and still get the main idea of his ideas about the future of education.… Read more

If We Ban High Stakes Testing, How Can We Assess Learning in Science?

By Jack Hassard

October 22, 2011

High stakes testing should not be used to make significant decisions about student performance (achievement in a course, passing a course, being promoted, graduating) and should be banned. In this post we explore formative assessment methods, and show how teachers to make decisions and judgments about student achievement should use a combination of formative and summative assessments.

Some would argue that we don’t have the science right to make such a decision.… Read more

The Consequence of Banning High-Stakes Testing in (Science)

By Jack Hassard

October 20, 2011

American education in general, and science education specifically have been radically and negatively impacted by high-stakes testing.

High-stakes testing, as set forth in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), is the idea that the pressure of such tests will increase student achievement. But one of the major studies cited here finds that the pressure created by high-stakes tests has no important influence on academic performance (Nichols, Glass & Berliner, 2005).… Read more

With Out Science Inquiry Activities, Science Test Scores Are Better

By Jack Hassard

October 16, 2011

In an article in the The Palm Beach News, science teachers discovered that when they threw out the recommended science inquiry and hands on activities, their students improved their scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).

I am not writing this as a protest against these science teachers. They know their students better than you and I, but I want to use this case as a way to talk about the Collateral Damage (as described by Sharon Nichols & David Berliner in their book) caused by high-stakes testing.… Read more

Review of the NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education

By Jack Hassard

October 5, 2011

The Carnegie Corporation of New York, which funded the National Research Council’s project A Framework for K-12 Science Education, also provided the financial support for the Fordham Foundation’s review of NRC Framework. Although not a conflict of interest for the Fordham Foundation, it does raise questions about the Carnegie Foundation’s desire to fund an evaluation of its own funded project.… Read more