Essay Sample on Assessment and Standardized Testing

Introduction

Standardized testing is an examination technique that follows consistent testing and scoring format. Standardized tests have the same questions, which are administered under the same conditions, and the scoring will follow the same procedure. Standardized testing allows the examiners to compare the results of students from different schools. Standardized testing is a controversial topic in the United States education system especially due to its use as a gauge of teacher and school performance. As a result, it is important to look at the history of standardized testing and how it is used in society for education placement and achievement.

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The origins of standardized tests are dating back to 1845 when education pioneer Horace Mann came up with an idea to test students' knowledge using written tests instead of an oral exam for the Boston Schoolchildren. According to Gallagher, (2003), the educational pioneer had the goal of finding and replicating the best teaching methods that would provide the students with equal opportunities. His plans were very successful to the point that competitive written exams were adopted in almost all cities in the United States.

Mann's idea also got a boost from Darwin's paper in 1859 that had proposed the theory of evolution. Psychologists had been studying mental differences and deficiencies between individuals and studying human behavior. Immigration, the rising cost of living, mandatory school attendance, and restrictive child labor laws all worked to create crowded classrooms in America. Scientists were always in search of efficient ways to sort out students in America's overcrowded classrooms. Increasingly diverse coursework and subjective teacher judgments increased the complexity of student assessment (Gallagher, 2003). There was always the thought that instructors could attempt to influence the outcome by teaching the test. However, the convenience of standardized tests outweighed the risks and schools began working on the comprehensive and comparable representation of student learning.

Today, standardized tests are used for education placement and achievement. Students from all over the country compete against each other for spots in the country's top colleges. Standardized tests assess the students' readiness for college and career paths. An example of a standardized test is the Scholastic Assessment Test, simply known as the SAT. Part of the reason for the development of the SAT was to turn America's top colleges into institutions for talented students from all backgrounds. Although stakeholders in the education sector have recently questioned its merits, the SAT was supposed to give students from humble backgrounds an equal chance as those from well-off backgrounds in gaining admission into the top institutions.

Technology in the Classroom

Technology has revolutionized every sector of human society, and it is set to continue with the growing trend in the coming years. Humans will continuously become increasingly reliant on technology to fulfill their daily activities as the internet becomes cheaper and technology advances. The education sector has been slow to embrace technology even though it is responsible for producing workers that will manufacture and operate these devices. Therefore, as a teacher of earth sciences who has been offered a job to teach 12th-grade students, I would incorporate technology in the classroom through the following four ways.

I would be giving and collecting assignments online through the school portal. Giving and collecting assignments online is an efficient way to improve education because it eliminates the need for physical movement and space. Using the online platform to issue and collect assignments removes the need for my physical presence in the classroom or at school. That feature will come in handy, especially during emergencies where I am not able to make it to school. There is also the issue of storage, which can be cumbersome. Rather than having to carry around a bag to store the students' papers, I can rely on cloud computing to assist me with saving students' assignments.

The second way would be to eliminate handwritten work. I would ask the students to type their assignments and submit both softcopies and hard copies. Since I am teaching Geography class, students will be required to draw using their hands especially when it comes to topics such as plate tectonic movements (Geology.com, n.d.). Typed work is advantageous as it allows for easy marking of the assignment. It prevents factors such as poor handwriting from interfering with the quality of the work. Softcopies enable me to check the credibility of the work by checking plagiarism and tracking citations.

The third way to incorporate technology in the classroom would be by using projectors and television screens to teach. According to Salman Khan, videos can reinvent the education sector because of their interactive nature (Khan, 2011). The human brain has a higher chance of remembering still images and motion pictures compared to information that is transmitted through written and verbal communication. Therefore, projectors and television sets are efficient educative tools because they increase the probability of the students understanding and remembering the things I teach during the lesson. This technology can be especially useful when teaching subjects such as climate, rocks, and minerals.

The fourth way to incorporate technology into the classroom would be through video recordings. If I were unable to make it to the class, I would record a video and send it to the students for them to watch. To ensure compliance, I would set a test based on the video in the next lesson. Therefore, the test is a way to ensure that the students watch the lesson video. All these show incorporations of technology in class to improve the learning process for both the teacher and the students.

Teaching Students with Disabilities

Teaching students with disabilities can be challenging to both the students and the teachers. Students with disabilities require an extra level of attention to ensure that they get the same quality of education as the other students. Hearing impairment is an example of a disability. Hearing disability or hearing impairment is a type of condition that develops due to the inner ear or nerve damage that leads to partial or total loss of hearing ability.

The best way to support a student with this type of disability would be to make technology a significant part of my teaching. Devices such as hearing aid in the case of partial loss of hearing ability could enhance the students' experience. However, the universal solution would be to rely on non-verbal communication such as the use of signs and written communication. Once again, the technology could come in handy by using screen projectors, and television screens. Projectors and television screens allow the student to utilize their visual sense rather than their auditory senses. PowerPoint presentations combine the use of images and written communication to teach the students. I would also learn sign language so that I can communicate using sign language those concepts or points that I cannot explain using projectors and television screens. I would also make sure to provide a transcription of my lessons to the students so that they can read the topics that they missed. These processes would provide sufficient support to the student with a disability.

References

Gallagher, C. J. (2003, March). Reconciling a Tradition of Testing with a New Learning Paradigm. Educational Psychology Review, 15(1), 83-99. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/23361535?mag=short-history-standardized-tests&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Geology.com. (n.d.). Teaching Earth Science a Collection of Classroom Activities and Lesson Plans. Retrieved from Geology.con: https://geology.com/teacher/

Khan, S. (Director). (2011). Let's Use Video to Reinvent Education [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education