I do not understand why all of our standardized testing is based at the knowledge level. If we truly want to get an accurate representation of their abilities shouldn't we evaluate them at all of the levels, especially evaluation. Plus, how good of an education can we really be giving them if our only expectation is recall. Outside of the classroom how often will you be able to completely answer what someone asks you with only recall? Rarely. We want our children to have real life skills and be critical thinkers; but in many cases the schools are providing environments that encourage them to do nothing other than memorize, and often these facts aren't even retained past the examination. We need to convince our legislators and test makers that recall and recognition do not prove learning or intelligence.

I agree with Sara. I think that all of the standardized testing is based on the knowledge level and that does not necessarily help students in real life. They need to be able to complete questions on all levels of bloom's taxonomy. If they can answer questions on all levels that would help them tremendously in life because how often does someone just ask you a recall question. When people ask you a question they usually want to know your opinion on something or whether or not you agree with them. I think if there was someway to ask all levels of questions on a standardized test that would benefit the teacher and the students a great deal.

I completely agree with Megan and Sara. I feel like students do not gain the educational benefits they deserve when they are expected to always perform at a minimum of a knowledge and recall level. I think part of the issue is that many people (including some teachers) totally underestimate the power of a child's mind and firmly believe that they are not capable of such thinking. I believe that children are sometimes viewed as machines that we train to spit out facts back to us. This bothers me because children do need to be held at higher expectations because they are capable of it. I firmly believe that most children will only succeed to the level they are expected to achieve at, whether the expectations come from home or class. It is our jobs as teachers to give each and every student the best education they deserve and we can not do that by having low expectations at a knowledge and recall level.

I agree that standardized testing holds lower level thinking skills for students, but how do you incorporate the higher levels but still make the test standardized? I think the teacher should test his/her students at higher levels, that way the students achieve higher level thinking and then when the EOG comes around it should be easier from them since they should be use to thinking at a higher level than the standardized test requires.

I agree with Kayla. I also think that standardize test lowers the standard. I think that you could be a really good test taker or a really good guesser and really not know what you being tested on. I think that we are going to judge students that we should do it on more then test. All students learn differently and I think that we need to come up with another away to see if student have learned. Maybe someone can write what to do but when they go to preform it they can't ...so I think we should do something for those students for can do it but maybe not be able to explain in clearly.

I agree with Sara. Standardized testing is not doing much for our schools other than testing the anxiety of the students. It is a set test designed for one kind of student, one kind of learner. This test does not fit majority of the students in a school because memorizing and recalling is not how they learn. A lot of students very hands on and they cannot do well on these tests because that is not how their minds work. Yet according to the test they are just disabled in their learning abilities. Also, about 99% of the things I had to memorize for a standardized test has been forgotten. That is not real learning. A student should learn something to retain the information, not to see how smart the school system says they are. While testing is good to a certain extent, it cannot fully determine the knowledge of all students because every student is very different.

I think you are right on Hannah. The standardized tests do not test the knowledge of students. How can they be any kind of evaluation when they do not work for most students. One thing I have learned from being in the classroom and taking class about this, is that every student learns differently. If this statement is as true as it seems to be, then standardize testing is a horrible solution to an "actual" evaluation of students knowledge. I am an example of a student who suffers from these tests; I am a horrible test taker and in high school when I would sit down for these tests I would panic because i knew that if i hadn't memorized everything, i would just guess. This is not the type test we need for students. We need something that will attend to all types of learning styles to give us an actual statistic of how much information students are learning and retaining.

As future educators, for the most part we all agree that standardized test do not test knowledge. In my opinion, most of the time students who do well on standardized tests have strategies that enable them to do so. Throughout my schooling experience I have always been frustrated with peers that would put in half the effort I did and still managed to score higher on standardized tests because I've always struggled with tests. I firmly believe that there needs to be a fix to standardized testing. My suggestion would be to have different options available that assess the same information in a different way. An example of this would be to accommodate the students to what their learning needs are. The students that display their knowledge best by filling in bubbles have them do that. For the students who are artistic or who can show what they know through a model, allow students do that. For the students who are great with writing their words on paper, allow them to be assessed that way. Finally I firmly believe that there are different alternatives to assessing students and I feel as though students would benefit more by allowing more than one assessment option.

I agree with Christin that there should be a variety of methods to evaluating students. I was also the student thoughout school who struggled with tests that included multiple choice and strict right and wrong answers. I always felt anxiety when it came to the EOGs in grade school. And because of that anxiety, I did poorly. I highly doubt that there are only a few students in our schools with the same struggles as this. I agree that administration places too much emphasis on the standard way of testing, when this way only works for a small number of students. As a future teacher I will be sure to teach the material that is supposed to be taught, however I do not feel the need to pressure students to memorize and recall the information piece by piece. To me pleasant expereinces and highlighting memories is what causes children to remember what they have been taught. I will organize my teaching stratagies in this way.

Hope Johnson

We have all heard success stories of teachers who do not use grades, but have students leave their classroom with a vast array of knowledge. Standardized testing is beyond ridiculous in my opinion. Can we really rate the intelligence of our students on a test? What about those students who have testing anxiety? Many students who do well with standardizing testing either a.) are good guessers or b.) know strategies that enable them to test well. I agree 100% with Christin. There are many ways to assess a student's knowledge. A multiple test is not always the answer. Students learn in many different ways. Therefore, how do we expect all students to be good at test-taking? I personally was a good test-taker throughout my education so I once did not realize the problems with standardized tests. However, being in the schools and seeing students struggle with taking tests has made me realize that standardized testing is not the answer!

I agree with Christin that the test need to be achievable by all students. Unfortunately when we change the tests for each student we lose the standardization part of the test. The tests were created to evaluate all students "equally", but the people who made these tests do not realize that no two students are alike. We all are different people that require different ways to learn. The idea that we could standardize all of the U.S. to the same test is ridiculous!

Standardizing test and standardizing curriculum and even standardizing students is the best thing that has happened to education since government controlled schools were invented. They allow for the flow of money through the educational system be it to schools who show the most potential for weeding out the challenged students and placing them in a separate category so they do not hinder the scores, or by not allowing a school in a impoverish neighborhood more funds because their students were not able to attend school due to gang fights in the area and therefore were not able to learn what was on the tests. It most defiantly takes in account that the entire country hosts people who are all of similar race, nationality, income level, and even gender. The list of benefits are amazingly huge.

There is no true way to create a standardized test. Just the notion that all 3rd graders in each state will be taking the same test that should show their ability to do what? Their ability to take a test. It does not show any of the abilities or skills that they will need to use once they finally graduate from school and join the common work force. To bring in a historical reference even Albert Einstein failed math in school. It goes to show that lower level thinking plays but a small part in a person's ability to set a goal and complete it. Give the students a task that will require them to use the knowledge they should have gained and then set them to it. Once they reach that goal of completing the task not only have they learned something they have also learned how to apply that knowledge to a practical means. But you can't quantify it. You can't say well this school and x number of students complete that task so they get x number of dollars next year to continue in their good work. Standardized tests are a necessary evil at the current moment. It doesn't mean the teachers have to conform to "teaching the test".

When I tried voicing my opinion to a professor about standardized testing and how i believed it to be at the knowledge level of bloom's taxonomy, he got very upset with me! He said multiple choice questions can use all different levels of thinking. I still can't say that I agree with him. When there are answers in front of you to choose from, how is that allowing the student to think critically. They are taught to choose the best answer. These questions don't allow for creativity in a child's thought process. Whenever I take a multiple choice test, I always seem to do badly, no matter how hard i studied. But when it comes to short answer tests and essay questions, I can find ways to elaborate and back up my answers. Like someone previously mentioned, standardized testing can cause a lot of anxiety because students don't get to express what they are thinking. Its either right or wrong. There seem to be so many flaws with these tests. EOGs help to maintain a standard in schools, which is great, but the multiple choice testing doesn't always seem to show off the student's full abilities. I think there needs to be some kind of change with the type of tests that are given...

I really don't like tricky multiple choice questions. All that they really do is cause anxiety and lessen a persons self confidence if wrong. I think that multiple choice questions should be easy, but written questions should be a bit more critical. Projects are in my opinion, one of the best ways to really get a child informed and understanding the material. they can include things that help all different types of learners. I do think that multiple choice questions should be given, but with less emphasis.