Teaching the Test Makes Students Do Worse on Said Test

[livius drusus]

A new study by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/education/11education.html?src=me&ref=general) using test scores and student evaluations to determine what teaching methods are most effective has found that students do best on standardized testing when they are taught concepts in a holistic manner rather than by test drills. Not that this should be a huge shocker for anyone, but given how common "teach the test" has become these days, a solid study showing that first principles are not just better for a child's overall education but better for test score stats too is very much in order.

Statisticians began the effort last year by ranking all the teachers using a statistical method known as value-added modeling, which calculates how much each teacher has helped students learn based on changes in test scores from year to year.

Now researchers are looking for correlations between the value-added rankings and other measures of teacher effectiveness.

Research centering on surveys of students' perceptions has produced some clear early results.

Thousands of students have filled out confidential questionnaires about the learning environment that their teachers create. After comparing the students' ratings with teachers’ value-added scores, researchers have concluded that there is quite a bit of agreement.

Classrooms where a majority of students said they agreed with the statement, "Our class stays busy and doesn't waste time," tended to be led by teachers with high value-added scores, the report said.

The same was true for teachers whose students agreed with the statements, "In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes," and, "My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class." [...]

One notable early finding, Ms. Phillips said, is that teachers who incessantly drill their students to prepare for standardized tests tend to have lower value-added learning gains than those who simply work their way methodically through the key concepts of literacy and mathematics.

Teachers whose students agreed with the statement, "We spend a lot of time in this class practicing for the state test," tended to make smaller gains on those exams than other teachers.

"Teaching to the test makes your students do worse on the tests," Ms. Phillips said. "It turns out all that 'drill and kill' isn't helpful."

Also, I didn't know this but as of right now, public schools in the US very rarely use student evaluations to assess teacher efficacy. This came as a surprise to me because in college every single class I took had an evaluation form at the end, and it was widely known that those evaluations played an important role in determining who got tenure.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

I think my HS introduced that in the last couple years I was there, liv.

As for "teaching to the test doesn't work"... students around the nation say :duh:

[Nullifidian]

Also, I didn't know this but as of right now, public schools in the US very rarely use student evaluations to assess teacher efficacy.

At least that's one good thing one can say about them.

It wouldn't surprise me if Bill Gates is pushing for that to be included in public school education, along with all his other attacks on public schools.

[livius drusus]

I gather from the article that the Foundation will be, at least. I don't know about Bill himself. Why do you think that's an attack on public schools?

[Demimonde]

I would say that many college students lack the maturity to evaluate professors, let alone younger kids. The teachers that have taught me the most, other students hated. A few of them I was slow to warm up to. But they were fantastic educators.

I am not surprised at the results of this study. Drills do little to teach the "how" let alone the "why" of most material. It is mostly pattern recognition which is the lowest of low mental capacities.

[Nullifidian]

It's a way of destroying the autonomy of teachers and making their jobs dependent on the whims of the administration.

Even if you look like Natalie Portman and have the patience of Griselda, you will get some negative evaluations. The longer you teach, the more negative evaluations you rack up. So assume you are in the position of a young tenure-track professor who has taken public positions in opposition to the administration, like over the poor treatment of adjunct faculty, Israeli divestment, grad student unionization, etc. Or maybe you're just flunking too many snowflakes, and this looks bad in your department's retention statistics. The administration will say, "Gee, I have a stack of bad student evaluations here. Clearly you're not cut out for this university, and we're denying your bid for tenure." The evaluations are anonymous, so there's no way of telling which are genuine complaints and which are simply payback from students who know they're failing. And even if you did know that, you couldn't do anything about it because you weren't denied tenure for your views. Oh no, you were denied tenure because of "too many" bad student evals.

In this case, Bill Gates is trying to privatize public school education, and squelching dissent from the very quarter where dissent is most readily expected—public school teachers—is high on his list of priorities.

[Crumb]

Bill Gates is trying to privatize public school education
Is he really? :stunned: How do you know this?

[Deadlokd]

And to what end?

[Clutch Munny]

It's a way of destroying the autonomy of teachers and making their jobs dependent on the whims of the administration.

Even if you look like Natalie Portman and have the patience of Griselda, you will get some negative evaluations. The longer you teach, the more negative evaluations you rack up. So assume you are in the position of a young tenure-track professor who has taken public positions in opposition to the administration, like over the poor treatment of adjunct faculty, Israeli divestment, grad student unionization, etc. Or maybe you're just flunking too many snowflakes, and this looks bad in your department's retention statistics. The administration will say, "Gee, I have a stack of bad student evaluations here. Clearly you're not cut out for this university, and we're denying your bid for tenure." The evaluations are anonymous, so there's no way of telling which are genuine complaints and which are simply payback from students who know they're failing. And even if you did know that, you couldn't do anything about it because you weren't denied tenure for your views. Oh no, you were denied tenure because of "too many" bad student evals.

In this case, Bill Gates is trying to privatize public school education, and squelching dissent from the very quarter where dissent is most readily expected—public school teachers—is high on his list of priorities.

Well... if you work someplace where the evaluations could be used that unscrupulously and not have such actions be overturned on appeal, then you're working someplace they could probably fire your ass for no reason anyhow.

I don't know of any otherwise sensible university where negative evaluations are aggregated without context like that. It's a matter of your average scores. After all, someone who teaches a single large course will get more negative evals in one term than someone who teaches small groups might get in a decade.

I know there's all sorts of arbitrary and politically motivated shit that happens to junior faculty in some American universities, and especially private ones. But student evaluations are not the problem; they are at most just one instrument that university administrators with warlord-like powers can exercise. The problem is university administrators with warlord-like powers.

(There are big problems with student evaluations of faculty, of course; but I'm not sure that what you mention is one of those problems. Bigger issues include: evaluations seem linked to grades; evaluations seem to reflect gender and race biases.)

[Qingdai]

:unnod: The warlord powers of the administration is a frequent problem where I work.

Everyone cringing and working for serf wages, toadying up to a benefactor, that all sounds familiar. Probably why I haven't gotten a raise in forever.

[Angakuk]

That, or raises where you work are merit based. :tongue:

[Qingdai]

Do they do that for preachers too?

[Angakuk]

They must, because I haven't had a raise in years.

[beyelzu]

Maybe its different in college but I find that college professors teach to a test as well, sure its the one in their head often, the one that they haven't written yet, and perhaps by stressing points that will be tested they are also stressing important points for understanding.

[beyelzu]

(There are big problems with student evaluations of faculty, of course; but I'm not sure that what you mention is one of those problems. Bigger issues include: evaluations seem linked to grades; evaluations seem to reflect gender and race biases.)

This interests me for two reasons, one I fill out those evaluations now and two I hope to be so evaluated one day.

I wonder how much my own biases play in my rankings, luckily I am most bigoted to stupid people and if you keep your stupid out of the class than I could give a shit less.

I did completely blast my female bio 1103 professor but that is because she told a story in class about how once the health center suggested that she be tested for hpv and she went ballistic because she was married and never went back, not exactly a role model for the students.

Further, I suspected that she was a creationist, or at the most charitable was stupid and too soft on creationism.

Example, she used dinosaurs certain people as a form of stabilizing selection. I objected to this and offered one based on coloration of butterflies but she was like its too close to a different example.

It was during study session and not during class, and she did say that it isn't possible for it to occur, but still.

[LadyShea]

suggested that she be tested for hpv and she went ballistic because she was married

Um yeah. Marriage doesn't cure HPV. Millions of people walk around for years, infected, without even knowing it.

Dumbass people.

[Adam]

:sadno: Holy Matrimony is a level 1 Cleric spell that cures all diseases, including HPV. If the priest who casts it ever falls into disfavor with his deity by, say, casting it on a gay couple, then all the diseases he has ever cured with it will come back, with no saving throw. That's why it's important to protect the Sanctity of Marriage.

I can't believe how uninformed some of you people are.

[Clutch Munny]

I wonder how much my own biases play in my rankings, luckily I am most bigoted to stupid people and if you keep your stupid out of the class than I could give a shit less.

As usual, though, such biases are likely to be implicit.

The data I'm aware of suggests that if students are happy with your teaching, you get pretty much the same evals no matter what your race or gender; but that, if they're unhappy with your teaching, you get worse evaluations if you are a woman or non-white than if you're a white male.

[erimir]

Example, she used dinosaurs certain people as a form of stabilizing selection.What did she use as an example, again?

I think there's a word missing or something.

[Brimshack]

Sundry observations.

I have learned from some of my evaluations, and others meant very little. The difference can be quite striking. "He needs a haircut" or "that commie can go to Russia" are pretty much asking to be ignored. But when a student takes the time to comment on course content, reading selections, etc. I pay attention.

Sometimes, I learn by reading between the lines. I still remember a student who said; "He needs to write more stuff on the board, because I can't remember too well." It took me a few minutes to get the point. This student wasn't writing anything in his notes that I didn't put on the board. It didn't even occur to him to write down anything I hadn't. ...which was itself a possibility that hadn't yet occurred to me. I got this one early on, and it helped. Ever since then I make some explicit suggestions about note taking, and I make more of a point of putting stuff on the board.

One of the irritating things I remember from grad school occurred when I was the student rep to the department. A teacher who had the most lackluster monotone delivery in the world was up for mid-tenure review. The guy was brilliant and I learned a lot from him, but I knew from past experience that his classroom presentation was a real problem. Students hated it, and it showed in his evaluations, I mean it REALLY showed. The official write-up said that he had consistently positive evaluations. Someone called bullshit on the report and I had a chance to speak up on the matter without being too aggressive. I liked the teacher, but I was in the minority and I knew it. What bothered me was the sense that committee putting his report together had clearly expected to finesse the issue.

[livius drusus]

Seriously though. Get a haircut.

[beyelzu]

Example, she used dinosaurs certain people as a form of stabilizing selection.What did she use as an example, again?

I think there's a word missing or something.

eating.

she used an example where some people are able to get away from dinosaurs as an example of stabilizing selection.

[Brimshack]

Seriously though. Get a haircut.

...and get a real job?

[erimir]

Example, she used dinosaurs certain people as a form of stabilizing selection.What did she use as an example, again?

I think there's a word missing or something.

eating.

she used an example where some people are able to get away from dinosaurs as an example of stabilizing selection.Wouldn't it make more sense to say lions or tigers or something?

Random thought... I know that most predators avoid humans in modern times, but I wonder how long ago it was that lions or tigers or something actively predated on humans as like, a major source of food?

[wildernesse]

I wonder how much my own biases play in my rankings, luckily I am most bigoted to stupid people and if you keep your stupid out of the class than I could give a shit less.

As usual, though, such biases are likely to be implicit.

The data I'm aware of suggests that if students are happy with your teaching, you get pretty much the same evals no matter what your race or gender; but that, if they're unhappy with your teaching, you get worse evaluations if you are a woman or non-white than if you're a white male.

Oh, that reminds me of my first quarter in college when our lady professor gave out the evaluations for our honors literature class and said something along the lines of "The way I dress is not up for evaluation."
Apparently, some of her previous evaluations had said she dressed too provocatively as part of telling her what a terrible teacher she was.

I'm sure it would have made an impression on me if she had, since I was such a wide-eyed hayseed kid when I ended up at college, but what I remember is that she had a gorgeous and unusual engagement ring, was blonde, and her middle name was Babette (although for the life of me, I can't remember the rest of her name). And it was a fun and challenging class (excepting the DeLillo).

[Adam]

Random thought... I know that most predators avoid humans in modern times, but I wonder how long ago it was that lions or tigers or something actively predated on humans as like, a major source of food?

I'm going to guess probably basically never, at least not actively.

Primate Factsheets: Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) Taxonomy, Morphology, & Ecology (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee)

Long thought to be free of natural predators because of their large body size, work in the Taï Forest and at Lopé National Park, Gabon has shown that leopard (Panthera pardus) attacks can be a significant cause of mortality in chimpanzees (Boesch &Boesch-Achermann 2000; Henschel et al. 2005). The extent to which leopards choose to hunt chimpanzees is unclear, though, and may be the work of just a few risk-taking cats (Boesch & Boesch-Achermann 2000). Lions are also capable of killing chimpanzees, and predation by lions has been observed at Mahale Mountains National Park in Tanzania, but there are scant observations of lion predation at other sites where they are sympatric with chimpanzees (Tsukahara 1993).

TLR will be along shortly to demonstrate how wrong I am.

[Angakuk]

Student evaluations of teachers, since when? I know that I am really old and all but I cannot recall ever being asked to fill out such an evaluation, in either college or grad school. Is this some new fangled thing all the kids are doing nowadays?

In recent years I have filled out such evaluations following continuing ed classes, but those classes have had only a passing resemblence to anything that qualifies as real education. The evaluation forms were pretty lame, but not any more lame than my responses.