100% Not always what we want

Just recently I gave a formal exam to one of my classes, and some students scored 100%.  Normally, I would not critique this mark, but what I heard from my students caused me to reflect. 

At the start of one of my classes some students were discussing their marks and I overheard one student, who achieved a 100% on the exam, say “I can’t believe I got a 100%, I had to guess on some answers. Lucky me!”

Is this the reaction we want from our students after an exam, regardless of the mark they receive? 

I believe it is more important we know WHY a student feels as they were successful or failed then the actual mark they received on an assessment.  This particular student believes it was luck that actually caused his achievement to increase not talent, ability or knowledge. 

When students inform me that they have “studied hard” for an exam, my first question is why?  I, always, try to see any action from the student’s point of view and then determine whether or not real learning is occurring and will it keep occurring.  If a student is studying hard because he/she is completely lost in the course, he/she is most likely cramming and no real learning is occurring.

I now ask, why do students spend countless hours cramming information, which is usually not into their long term memory, into their mind?

Years ago, I blamed myself for these actions.  I promoted this mind-set in my class by constantly using the words, “Performance, Results, Achievement, Failure, and Success!”  In my class I was more concerned about the answers to my problems than in the procedure to solve the problems. 

Students were leaving my class happy they got an A, while I wanted them to be excited they now understood how to think critically in a mathematical world.  The irony of it all was when my final results of my courses came in.  Paradoxically, I was ending up with results which were lower than my colleagues.  This priority of achieving high results, ultimately was my demise in both achievement and, more importantly, learning. 

Lastly, we need to be aware of the plethora of research around achievement and grades which is showing that if we put a large emphasis on these it will

1) Undermine the idea of true intrinsic motivation in the material we are teaching.

2) Causes some students to feel as success is an idea which is unachievable.

3) Will force students to “take the easy route” instead of working on a more challenging problem.

4) Reduces the quality of learning.

5) Creates an environment where students will create a self-image of themselves based on how smart they are, instead on how hard they are trying.

An example of corruption around test scores

Some say corruption does not exist around test scores, below is an example from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123748/Teachers-bend-rules-boost-exam-scores-Survey-finds-test-marks-fiddled-pupils-bribed.html that clearly shows it does.

Teachers are bribing pupils with pizza nights and fiddling test results to help their schools secure exam success, a survey has found.

Almost 40 per cent admitted the ‘overwhelming pressure’ to ensure that pupils achieve good grades ‘could compromise their professionalism’.

The poll, by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, reveals the lengths that schools are prepared to go to in order to climb league tables.

A quarter of respondents said they gave pupils ‘rewards and incentives’ to work harder. One teacher cited organising ‘pizza nights’.

In addition, 28 per cent said they felt obliged to attend controversial exam board seminars.

The admission follows an undercover newspaper investigation that found some teachers paid up to £230 a day to attend seminars with chief examiners, during which they were advised on exam questions and even the wording pupils should use to get higher marks.

One state secondary school teacher told ATL: ‘I know of an exam meeting where it was strongly hinted which topics would come up in the exam. I was glad my school was there but I felt sorry for those that were not.’

Another said: ‘We don’t go to many exam seminars because we can’t afford it. We probably lose out to those who can.’

The union surveyed 512 teachers, lecturers and headteachers working in state-funded and independent primary and secondary schools, academies and colleges in England ahead of its annual conference, which begins in Manchester today.

Some admitted fiddling exam scores. A primary school teacher said: ‘I have been forced to manipulate results so that levels of progress stay up.’


A secondary school teacher added: ‘The school I work at definitely pushes the boundaries of exam integrity. Maintaining their “gold-plated” status takes precedence over developing the abilities of the pupils.

‘Controlled assessments and aspects of coursework are problem areas for cheating, with senior leadership driving the agenda.’

A grammar school teacher said: ‘In some cases I end up virtually re-writing my students’ homework to match the marking criteria, rather than teach them my subject, French. I do this because there is simply not time to do both.’

Eighty-eight per cent of those polled said the pressure to get pupils through exams prevented the teaching of a broad and balanced curriculum, while 73 per cent claimed it had a detrimental effect on the quality of teaching. Seventy-one per cent said it affected the standard of learning.


In addition, one teacher warned that pupils are ‘close to breakdown’ with the demands being put on them during out-of-school hours and the Easter holidays.

Dr Mary Bousted, ATL’s general secretary, said: ‘With the Government’s persistent focus on tests, exam results and league tables, many teachers and lecturers also feel under enormous pressure – often to the detriment of high-quality teaching, learning and development of pupils.

‘School league tables, school banding and Ofsted inspections undermine the curriculum and do nothing to support pupils and their hard-working teachers, lecturers and leaders.’

Au Revoir to old ways of testing

Here is the finale and the solution to the Call of Duty Project.

Wanted to share what occurred in my math class when I challenged the definition of a "test".

Step 1:  Give truly open ended questions:

1)       Illustrate the knowledge of graphing a trigonometric function by using the function, and its first and second derivative.  The function, the first derivative, and the second derivative, when combined, must use at least three different trigonometric functions.

2)      Illustrate the knowledge of displacement and distance covered on a closed interval, using a trigonometric equation for distance.  The function, the first derivative, and the second derivative, when combined, must use at least two different trigonometric functions.

3)      Show a real life application of an angle changing with respect to time.  The use of a video, appropriate measurements and illustrated work must be shown. You must solve for the exact change of the angle at a certain time.

Step 2:

Allow students to use any interest to demonstrate their knowledge

Step 3:

Ensure that the students truly have demonstrated their knowledge about the outcome.

Don't teach that, "It is not on the test"

I have heard the following statements from different educators:

Why are you teaching that…it isn’t on the test!

Why do you need to know this?  Because it is on the exam!

If I don’t test, then I won’t know what a student knows!

These statements disgust me! 

If you believe tests hold teachers accountable, here is my comment on that.

If you believe that tests cause students to learn material, here is my comment on that.

If you believe tests inform us what students know, here is my comment on that.

I have heard educators, who are required to test their students a month before the end of the course, say the following

“Now that the exam is over, I am going to let you explore!”

It saddens my heart to know that we are required to teach the “boring” stuff to get through all the material for the exam, and after the exam we can then do the “fun” stuff.  Tests are robbing students from open-ended, deep meaning, and creative tasks.  The statement above is not an indictment to the teacher saying it, but actually the test that forces the teacher to teach as such. 

Too many times teachers must tell their students that they are not able to discuss certain passions, due to the timeline of the course.  If these teachers don’t follow the timeline as such, there won’t be enough time to prepare them for the useless bubble sheet they will be provided with at the end of the course.

If you are still not convinced, in our province Gr. 3 teachers are required to teach 1352 outcomes, as all these outcomes will be tested on the provincial achievement exam.  Is this reasonable?

Don't think about thinking....its not on the test.

Does testing hold teachers accountable?

If you think testing is about holding teachers accountable, here is a take on that idea:

An excerpt from the daily papert:

It is this freedom of the teacher to decide and, indeed, the freedom of the children to decide, that is most horrifying to the bureaucrats who stand at the head of current education systems. They are worried about how to verify that the teachers are really doing their job properly, how to enforce accountability and maintain quality control.

They prefer the kind of curriculum that will lay down, from day to day, from hour to hour, what the teacher should be doing, so that they can keep tabs on it. Of course, every teacher knows this is an illusion. It’s not an effective method of insuring quality. It is only a way to cover ass.

Everybody can say, “I did my bit, I did my lesson plan today, I wrote it down in the book.” Nobody can be accused of not doing the job.

But this really doesn’t work.

What the bureaucrat can verify and measure for quality has nothing to do with getting educational results–those teachers who do good work, who get good results, do it by exercising judgment and doing things in a personal way, often undercover, sometimes even without acknowledging to themselves that they are violating the rules of the system.

Of course one must grant that some people employed as teachers do not do a good job. But forcing everyone to teach by the rules does not improve the “bad teachers”– it only hobbles the good ones.

High end achievers love exams? Think again!

I have created a video illustrating, through comedy, what happens to your high end achievers when you have high stakes exams.

Exams Part 3

Why do we give exams Part 3?

After asking many teachers the top three answers that have been given are:

1)      “To assess, and find out actually what the students know” Rebuttal to this

2)      “If we don’t test it, the students won’t want to learn it” Rebuttal to this

3)      “Hold teachers accountable for their teaching`

Rebuttal to 3:

This reason does not even make sense to me.  If I want to make sure my doctor is being professional, would I book more appointments with him?  Should men and women see the doctor more than once a year to ensure the doctor is keeping informed with medicinal breakthroughs?

We need to start trusting our teachers as professionals, and not as people who don’t care about their career.  Are there teachers who aren’t professional? Absolutely, just as there are doctors who are not professional, or managers, or gas attendants, or dentists, etc.  In any job, career, or field of study, there are people who “fly under the radar”, but I guarantee it is not an overwhelming percentage.

One solution; “Raise the bar” by administering common exams or create benchmarks that are common for the same course throughout a school.  Your high to middle performing teachers will rise to this new level; however the same teachers who weren’t at the level before, will still remain not functioning at the expected level.  

I have heard many teachers say “Fire those lazy teachers!”.  This also is not the solution!

From Washington post: and this blog

Talking about the systematic firings, he notes, “In the long run, it would probably be superior…to develop systems that upgrade the overall effectiveness of teachers.” He points out, however, that these efforts have not been successful in the past. But have we really tried?

Instead of trying to fire our way to the high performance of Finland or anywhere else, why not try to emulate the policies that these nations actually employ? It seems very strange to shoot for the achievement levels of these nations by doing the exact opposite of what they do.

We are playing with students’ marks and confidence levels by worrying about whether or not a teacher is doing his/her job.  This needs to stop.  Trust the professionals, and you will see teachers starting to create new and innovative ways of assessment. 

I truly believe we will then witness ground-breaking and truly inventive ways of differentiated assessment.  We need to stop the idea of “Every student can learn differently, but all have to demonstrate their learning the same and on the same day”.

I have addressed the top three reasons of why teachers give an exam, but I ask this, if you are administering exams in your school, why do YOU give exams?

Exams last part 2

Why do we give exams?

After asking many teachers the top three answers that have been given are:

1)      “To assess, and find out actually what the students know” Rebuttal to this
2)      “If we don’t test it, the students won’t want to learn it”
3)      “Hold teachers accountable for their teaching`

Rebuttal to 2:

First, we need to understand that there is difference between learning and achievement.  For more click here. 

Second, if a student asks you, “Why do I have to learn this?” and your first or only response is “for the test”, then you are actually destroying any possible engagement.  People need to understand that learners don’t ask for the application to challenge the teacher, but actually want to understand the meaning behind the concept. 

If there truly is NO real life application then I would first advise you to contact those in charge of your mandated outcomes and ask them why you need to teach the specific outcome.  In the defense of the government, if they don’t know there is a problem, how can we expect them to find a solution?

Assuming that the outcome does have real life application, we should be focusing on the relevance and not the mindless repetition of the outcome.  Contrary to some popular belief, students do crave knowledge, but they need to be shown the “why” just as often as the “how”. 

For some outcomes this is an easy task, while for others I understand this can be quite difficult.  I, however, do believe that no matter how challenging it might be to show the “why”, the learning that will occur because of it, will make the journey worth taking. 

An exam should not be the reason anything is taught in a class.  “Teaching to the test” should be the equivalent of swearing in a classroom; something that should NEVER be done or even entertained.    I read the following, and became sick to my stomach!

Everything that has to do with the test has been given such a high priority, that there is no priority any more but that … The bottom line question comes down to, "Well, what’s going to help them do better on the test?" And if it’s not going to help them do better on the test, well, we don’t have time for that right now (Wright, 2002, p.10).

I would hope, that most agree, that the above statement is not one that teachers should be making.  If you believe, however, that a test is the only way students will learn, you are on your way to making the statement above.  I strongly encourage educators to allow students to find significance in given tasks, and you will start to see that your test no longer becomes the reason students want to learn.

AMP first, marks second.

Why do we give exams?

After asking many teachers the top three answers that have been given are:

1)      “To assess, and find out actually what the students know”

2)      “If we don’t test it, the students won’t want to learn it”

3)      “Hold teachers accountable for their teaching”

After many hours of thought, I have decided to post my rebuttal to these three reasons, over the next three blogs:

1)      To argue this I would like to start by quoting Einstein “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”.  I believe that discrete statistical data, derived from tests, actually devalue the professional judgement of a teacher.  Teachers should be able to rely on the personal interaction with their students that they have on a day-to-day basis and not the mark received on an exam. 

To further illustrate this, before a student even writes an exam, he/she could explain to the teacher what his/her mark will be on the evaluation.  Furthermore, I would even go as far saying that most teachers know what mark the student will receive on the exam as well.  If both the teacher and the student know what mark is going to be achieved, why waste valuable class time giving an examination?

Tests are also discouraging to any student achieving a mark that is not sufficient.  A student, in this category, will walk into your class KNOWING they will not achieve an adequate mark, and then write the exam.  When you hand back the exam, marked, their knowledge will be confirmed with the poor mark.  We are beating their confidence down with their own knowledge.

Alfie Kohn, would say:

“Most assessment systems are based on an out-dated behaviourist model that assumes nearly everything can -- and should -- be quantified.  But the more educators allow themselves to be turned into accountants, the more trivial their teaching becomes and the more their assessments miss.”

Some would then argue; give more exams.  The more chances a student has to demonstrate their learning, the better the picture the teacher has of what the student knows.  Psychologists Martin Maehr and Carol Midgly would say “an overemphasis on assessment can actually undermine the pursuit of excellence”. 

It has been shown, many times, that the more a student is told to focus on their marks, the less engaged they become about the learning.  Classrooms should have less of an emphasis on achievement and marks, and more emphasis on autonomy, mastery, and purpose.