It’s AP exam week (hence the minimal blogging and tweeting I did this weekend), and the kids are bracing themselves for the excruciating 3.5 hour exam on Friday. Fifty-five of those minutes will be spent answering eighty multiple-choice questions that cover American history from pre-Columbian to present day. What interested me today was a discussion [...]

I support standardized testing and so do you even if you don’t know it or want to admit it. What you don’t support is standardized testing in its current form or for that use that has become synonymous with the term. Imagine if standardized testing was not mentioned in the same sentence as the “No [...]

I hate talking about grades, grading, and the like. I think it has become sad commentary on our educational system that students are willing to do anything to get a “good” grade. I also echo Jerrid Kruse’s point that we must begin to accept that our assessment’s are “merely a judgement” so that we can [...]

As mid-term time approaches, I can’t help but contemplate the validity and necessity of mid-terms and finals in K-12 education. I understand that we are preparing them for college mid-terms (not quite), but the reality is that we offering them another point to learn to cram ideas into their heads the week (if we’re lucky) [...]

I am a big believer in judging the quality of instruction and student learning based on the quality of the product created at the time of authentic assessment. In other words, every student should complete the same assessment, but the quality of in-depth thinking required is what separates the good from the…not so good. Teachers [...]