ChemicalSams on open internet testing

Aaron Sams, the Woodland Park educator who has been flipping his instruction for years, discusses the four or five kinds of students he has in his classes, based on how they use the world wide web for taking tests (or don’t).

Basically, there are students who know how to use the tools, students who don’t know how to use web-based tools and students who just don’t care. Sams doesn’t discuss student cheating, but his conclusions and reflections address other problems I think every teacher has.

Two of his points were especially poignant:

2. I really need to change the way I assess my students.  The Purists, The Google Challenged, and The Disinterested have not benefitted from open-internet tests.  I need a better way to assess the understanding of the Google Challenged and the Disinterested, and I need to be able to explore the upper limits of The Purists.
3. My students continue to treat tests as a means to acquire the sufficient number of points to obtain the letter grade that will keep their parents off of their backs.  They do not treat them as the diagnostic tool needed to help me determine what a student knows and can do.

This was my problem in school. Most often, I didn’t really care about what I was learning, I just wanted a grade that would demonstrate my “mastery” of the subject and keep future opportunities open to me. What must be done to truly engage a student like me or one who doesn’t even care enough to try on tests?

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