I posted my introductory post after my first day at EFHS but I wanted to follow it up with some more information about what happened. It was strange to be there before all the students arrived. For the first time I was on the teacher side more than the student side and I got to see all the drama that takes place behind the scenes. My mother is a teacher and I have gone with her to school to prepare before but she always let me stay in her classroom while all the meetings were going on. It was a good experience to see how much the teachers have to prepare for the students.
One day we went over WestTest scores so we could see how the students improved and what we needed to work on the most this year. It was good to actually have that hands-on experience with the scores. The teachers still have frustrations with the test and the way No Child Left Behind affects teaching. I do think that there are some good things that it has influenced though and once you get down to the scores you can see how the state and national standards are being stressed. sometimes it seemed like an arbitrary test to me so it was good to see where all the questions come from. I was disappointed to see how much weight was placed on one question though. It meant that some standards had only one question judging whether or not a student had mastered that skill and that does not seem right. Overall it was a good experience to see how the test works from a teaching standpoint and I am glad to get the figures on what students really struggle with.
Busy Bees
2 comments:
Yes, you really need to know where your students struggle, according to the test. You might also find that it is good to ask them where they feel they are struggling or doing well--sometimes their comments match their test scores, sometimes not!
I was just in a meeting Tuesday (the 4th) where a teacher from East Fairmont talked about the WesTest analysis meeting you attended. It's good that the scores are being analyzed, but it'll be interesting to see how much emphasis shifts to teaching to the test and how much emphasis is placed on teaching the larger skills the test is supposedly speaking to.
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