Testing

One of my jobs is testing coordinator in my school district. Luckily, it's not something completely new to me. It was part of my job as principal in the school district where I was employed the previous 2 years. Today, I had the opportunity to begin the organization of materials process. I can almost always guarantee that it won't go as smoothly as I would like it. Darn that Murphy and his laws! I was on the phone twice with the testing company and once with the state board of education. First, I didn't have all my test materials -- turns out I wasn't supposed to have it. It hadn't shipped yet. (sigh of relief!) The next call was because they didn't send the 4th grade pre-ID labels. So, I spent the rest of the afternoon bubbling in names, ID numbers, birthdays and RCDTS codes. At least there are only 15 kids in that class!

As I was reading through the test coordinator's manual, something caught my eye and it kind of bothers me. There is a section in the manual that talks about test accommodations, what you can and can't have on the walls, what you can and can't tell the students about, yadda, yadda. Here's the part that caught my eye. Students are not allowed to get up to refer to a poster. They must stay in their seats. Okay, I understand this. However, we all have those students who absolutely cannot sit in their seats for an entire 30 to 40 minutes. Some of us let them stand to do their assigned work or read. We are all encouraged to let the kids do what they need to do (stand, sit, take frequent breaks, etc.) in order for them to maximize learning. We use multimedia and interactive approaches to teaching. This whole testing thing is backwards to me (and hordes of others). Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the whole thing -- afterall, I am not one who can sit still for long, I need to be doing something -- but I'm also one who doesn't want others up and running around while I'm taking a test. I'm wondering if "they" could come up with a better way to test these kids if they need to be tested. What about a computer-based testing program? I teach computers at my school and I know that they generally sit better for me when they are engaged in computer learning. You would think that in this day of technology, we could come up with a better way to get this testing thing done. I wonder if computer based testing would yield better results. Hmmmmm......something to ponder......