Kids Take On “The Test”
PBL is a great way to motivate students on improving their standardized test scores, which is something that is so boring and weighing down for the classroom and the administration. Although I don’t agree with standardized tests sometimes you have to work within the system to make it work for you and these students definitely took that initiative and used it to their learning advancement. Students are placed as the educators through PBL because it gives them control over their learning and allows them to break it down in a way most relevant to them. It also brought the class together not only for the benefit of individual test performance but on school spirit. If these students can make standardized testing fun then there is hope for us teachers who will have to face the WKCE, local, state and national standards, all the while trying to prepare students for the “real world.”
I like the use of outside resources-from the librarian to an educational consultant-it makes it so much more real to the students and they feel like they are critical co-investigators (as Freire talks about in Pedagogy of the Oppressed) along with the teacher.
Empowering students
16 years ago
2 comments:
I agree with you, standardized tests are not measures of intelligence. I think they are biased in many ways and are not good indications of how intelligent one is. Despite this, standardized tests are part of the system and schools need students to perform well on them. I think posing the problem of how to perform well on the tests to student is a wonderful idea. I agree that this lets students learn what is relevant to them. However, I think it does much more then that. I think it makes learning interactive and gives value to their learning as opposed to teacher directed learning. I also think that PBL make students feel as if they have an opinion as to what they are learning. It allows them to become motivated and excitement about what their learning. I think the most important thing that PBL teaches is problem solving in team work. I have heard teachers are told they need to better prepare students better solve problems in teams.
Post a Comment