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Teaching To The Test
"Teaching to the test" is a colloquial term for any method of education whose curriculum is heavily focused on preparing students for a standardized test. Opponents of this practice argue that it forces teachers to limit curriculum to a set range of knowledge or skills in order to increase student performance on the mandated test. This produces an unhealthy focus on excessive repetition of simple, isolated skills ("drill and kill") and limits the teacher's ability to foster a holistic understanding of the subject matter. With high-stakes testing impeding over every decision teachers make, they are often forced to teach to the tests rather than to their students. This can drain instruction of passion and meaning as students are taught information from a bare-bones curriculum. This would be an incidence of Campbell's law, the general principle that a social indicator distorts the process it is intended to monitor. Furthermore, opponents argue, teachers who engage in it are typically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Various researchers emphasize the role of critical thinking in order to distinguish education from indoctrination. Some theorists require that education results in an improvement of the student while others prefer a value-neutral definition of the term. In a slightly different sense, education may also refer, not to the process, but to the product of this process: the mental states and dispositions possessed by educated people. Education originated as the transmission of cultural heritage from one generation to the next. Today, educational goals increasingly encompass new ideas such as the liberation of learners, skills needed for modern society, empathy, and complex vocational skills. Types of education are commonly divided int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cram School
A cram school, informally called crammer and colloquially also referred to as test-prep or exam factory, is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools, or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term '' cramming'', meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time. Education Cram schools may specialize in a particular subject or subjects, or may be aligned with particular schools. Special cram schools that prepare students to re-take failed entrance examinations are also common. As the name suggests, the aim of a cram school is generally to impart as much information to its students as possible in the shortest period of time. The goal is to enable the students to obtain a required grade in particular examinations, or to satisfy other entrance requirements such as language skill (e.g.: IELTS). Cram schools are sometimes criticis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wilson Quarterly
''The Wilson Quarterly'' is a magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The magazine was founded in 1976 by Peter Braestrup and James H. Billington. It is noted for its nonpartisan, non-ideological approach to current issues, with articles written from various perspectives. From Summer 2012 it has been published online. History The first issue appeared in Autumn 1976 and established two of the magazine's signature features. Article "clusters" explore different facets of a subject, often with contrasting points of view. Early subjects ranged from the exploration of space to the new revisionist history of the New Deal, with writers including Walt W. Rostow, Rem Koolhaas, George F. Kennan, John Updike, Carlos Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa. The magazine also includes individual essays. The ''Wilson Quarterly''s other signature feature is its "In Essence" section, which distills more than two dozen notable articles selected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bilingual Research Journal
The ''Bilingual Research Journal'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering bilingualism. The journal was established in 1975 and is published by Routledge. The current editors-in-chief are Dr. María E. Fránquiz and Emeritus Professor Alba A. Ortiz from the University of Texas at Austin. The Associate Editor is Dr. Gilberto P. Lara from the University of Texas at San Antonio The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is a Public university, public research university in San Antonio, Texas. With over 34,000 students across its four campuses spanning 758 acres, UTSA is the Education in San Antonio, largest universi .... See also * National Association for Bilingual Education External links * Works about bilingualism Publications established in 1975 Multilingual journals Routledge academic journals Triannual journals Linguistics journals {{ling-journal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volvo Effect
The Volvo effect is a term used in critiquing standardized testing that was created by Peter Sacks in his 2001 book ''Standardized Minds''. The term has been picked up by other sociologists, and counting Volvos has even been facetiously proposed as an alternative method to the spending millions of dollars on standardized testing.For instance in ''The Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing'' by M. Gail Jones, Brett D. Jones and Tracy Y. Hargrove. The original text in which the Volvo effect was advanced: References External links * *{{cite web, url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/sat-failing-test/, url-status=live, title=SAT--A Failing Test, publisher=www.thenation.com, accessdate=2009-09-14, last=Sacks, first=Peter Standardized tests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overfitting
mathematical modeling, overfitting is "the production of an analysis that corresponds too closely or exactly to a particular set of data, and may therefore fail to fit to additional data or predict future observations reliably". An overfitted model is a mathematical model that contains more parameters than can be justified by the data. The essence of overfitting is to have unknowingly extracted some of the residual variation (i.e., the noise) as if that variation represented underlying model structure. Underfitting occurs when a mathematical model cannot adequately capture the underlying structure of the data. An under-fitted model is a model where some parameters or terms that would appear in a correctly specified model are missing. Under-fitting would occur, for example, when fitting a linear model to non-linear data. Such a model will tend to have poor predictive performance. The possibility of over-fitting exists because the criterion used for selecting the model is no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washback Effect
Washback effect refers to the impact of testing on curriculum design, teaching practices, and learning behaviors. The influences of testing can be found in the choices of learners and teachers: teachers may teach directly for specific test preparation, or learners might focus on specific aspects of language learning found in assessments. Washback effect in testing is typically seen as either negative, or positive (sometimes referred to as ''washforward''). Washback may be considered harmful to more fluid approaches in language education where definitions of language ability may be limited; however, it may be considered beneficial when good teaching practices result. Washback can also be positive or negative in that it either maintains or hinders the accomplishment of educational goals. In positive washback, teaching the curriculum becomes the same as teaching to a specific test. Negative washback occurs in situations where there may be a mismatch between the stated goals of instruct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maotanchang Middle School
Maotanchang High School of Anhui Lu An is a high school in Maotanchang Subdistrict Village, Maotanchang Town, Jin'an District, Lu'an, Anhui, China. It is known as the largest 'Factory of Gaokao' and is famous for its industrial model of education, which caused a great deal of dispute about education in China Education in China is primarily managed by the state-run public education system, which falls under the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education. All citizens must attend school for a minimum of nine years .... The school insists on the methods of 'manufacturing students' mind for exam', which means that the students are trained by intensive exercises and homework to obtain a good grade in the competitive Gaokao. References {{coord missing, Anhui Schools in China Lu'an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Education In The United States
Education in the United States is provided in public and private schools and by individuals through homeschooling. State governments set overall educational standards, often mandate standardized tests for K–12 public school systems and supervise, usually through a board of regents, state colleges, and universities. The bulk of the $1.3 trillion in funding comes from state and local governments, with federal funding accounting for about $260 billion in 2021 compared to around $200 billion in past years. Private schools are free to determine their own curriculum and staffing policies, with voluntary accreditation available through independent regional accreditation authorities, although some state regulation can apply. In 2013, about 87% of school-age children (those below higher education) attended state-funded public schools, about 10% attended tuition and foundation-funded private schools, and roughly 3% were home-schooled. By state law, education is compulsory ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Campbell's Law
Campbell's law is an adage developed by Donald T. Campbell, a psychologist and social scientist who often wrote about research methodology, which states: Applications Campbell's law is related to the cobra effect, which is the sometimes unintended negative effect of public policy and other government interventions in economics, commerce, and healthcare. Education In 1976, Campbell wrote: "Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement ''under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence.'' But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways. (Similar biases of course surround the use of objective tests in courses or as entrance examinations.)" The social science principle of Campbell's law is used to point out the negative consequences of high-stakes testing in U.S. classrooms. This may take the form of tea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Test Preparation
Test preparation (abbreviated test prep) or exam preparation is an educational course, tutoring service, educational material, or a learning tool designed to increase students' performance on standardized tests. Examples of these tests include entrance examinations used for admissions to institutions of higher education, such as college (e.g. the SAT and ACT), business school (the GMAT), law school (the LSAT or LNAT), medical school (the MCAT), BMAT, UKCAT and GAMSAT and graduate school (the GRE) and qualifying examinations for admission to gifted education programs. Preparation options There are many resources and services on which students may draw as they prepare for standardized tests, including: * Courses: Many test preparation courses are designed to expose students to the breadth of topics tested on the relevant exam and guide them through the process of studying. * Flashcards: Index cards imprinted with information used as a study aid to reinforce memory retent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experiences in terms of the educator's or school's instructional goals. A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives. Curricula are split into several categories: the explicit, the implicit (including the hidden), the excluded, and the extracurricular.Kelly, A. V. (2009). The curriculum: Theory and practice (pp. 1–55). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Braslavsky, C. (2003). The curriculum. Curricula may be tightly standardized or may include a high level of instructor or learner autonomy. Many countries have national curricula in primary and secondary education, such as the United Kingdom's Na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
