scholarly journals Investigating Internal Accountability and Collective Capacity: Taking a Closer Look at Mathematics Instruction

2004 ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Jori Hall
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Leadership Capacity ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Testing Environment ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Mathematics Program ◽  
Internal Accountability ◽  
Collective Capacity

This case study uses multiple methods and gathers perspectives from administrators, teachers, and students to examine how a middle school develops internal accountability (Elmore, 2004) to address the needs of its diverse learners and external accountability mandates. Building on Newmann, King, and Rigdon’s (1997) framework for collective capacity, the school’s capacity to enact its internal accountability is explored. An in-depth investigation within the context of the school’s mathematics program, focusing on the academic needs of low-income, African American learners is conducted to further explore collective capacity as primarily enacted vis-à-vis teachers’ instructional strategies. The data presented contribute to a more complex and contextual perspective of teaching and learning within a high-stakes testing environment. The findings of this study show that despite tensions around student accountability and curricular demands, the school successfully incorporates internally-generated accountability and mandated strategies into their internal accountability system and demonstrates leadership capacity at multiple levels.

Engaging Exam-Oriented Students in Communicative Language Teaching by ‘Packaging’ Learning English Through Songs as Exam Practice

RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822097854
Author(s):  
Kevin Wai-Ho Yung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Communicative Language Teaching ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
Teachers And Students

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts where high-stakes testing prevails, Hong Kong students are highly exam-oriented and expect teachers to teach to the test. Because there is no direct assessment on literature in the English language curriculum, many teachers find it challenging to balance CLT through literature and exam preparation. To address this issue, this article describes an innovation of teaching ESL through songs by ‘packaging’ it as exam practice to engage exam-oriented students in CLT. A series of activities derived from the song Seasons in the Sun was implemented in the ESL classrooms in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Based on the author’s observations and reflections informed by teachers’ and students’ comments, the students were first motivated, at least instrumentally, by the relevance of the activities to the listening paper in the public exam when they saw the similarities between the classroom tasks and past exam questions. Once the students felt motivated, they were more easily engaged in a variety of CLT activities, which encouraged the use of English for authentic and meaningful communication. This article offers pedagogical implications for ESL/EFL teachers to implement CLT through literature in exam-oriented contexts.

Assessing Student Understanding

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 324
Author(s):  
Anthony Fernandes ◽  
Natasha Murray ◽  
Terrence Wyberg
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Student Understanding ◽  
Formative Assessments ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Testing Environment ◽  
School Year ◽  
Summative Assessments ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Improve Student Learning

In the current high–stakes testing environment, a mention of assessment is inevitably associated with large–scale summative assessments at the end of the school year. Although these assessments serve an important purpose, assessing students' learning is an ongoing process that takes place in the classroom on a regular basis. Effectively gathering information about student understanding is integral to all aspects of mathematics instruction. Formative assessments conducted in the classroom have the potential to provide important feedback about students' understanding, guide future instruction to improve student learning, and provide roadmaps for both teachers and students in the process of learning.

Undermining quality teaching and learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Ryan ◽  
Netta Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Quality Teaching ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Test Outcomes

Using tests to compare nations, states, school districts, schools, teachers, and students has increasingly become a basis for educational reform around the globe. Although tests can be informative, high-stakes testing (HST) is an approach to reform that applies rewards and sanctions contingent on test outcomes. Results of HST reforms indicate a plethora of unintended negative consequences, leading some to suggest that HST corrupts educational practices in schools. Although there are many accounts of these negative results, SDT supplies the only systematic theory of motivation that explains these effects. In what follows we describe the motivational principles underlying the undermining effects of HST on teachers and learners alike.

scholarly journals Washback of the performance-based test of reading for EFL learners

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 202
Author(s):  
Wiyaka Wiyaka
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Central Java ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Text Content

The effect of tests on the teaching and learning, generally known as washback, has been recognized by scholars for a long time. However, studies on washback are usually addressed for high-stakes testing. This study investigates the washback effect of low-stakes test namely performance-based test used in measuring reading skills. Such a test is low stakes because it does not bring about serious consequence on the part of the students. The subjects of the research were 10 English teachers and 50 students of junior high schools in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. Data were collected through semi-structured interview and a questionnaire for both the teachers and students. The results showed that performance-based test gives positive effect in reading for the EFL learners in the areas of: students� enthusiasm in reading, reducing boredom in reading, students� curiosity on reading text content, and students� improvement on higher-order thinking skills. To the teachers it affects the areas of teaching methods, teaching materials, and time allotment.

High-Stakes Testing: Worth the Price?

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Gordon ◽  
Marianne Reese
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Depth Data ◽  
Negative Side Effects ◽  
Learning School ◽  
Texas School Districts

The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) is a classic case of the high-stakes test, accompanied by rewards for high performing schools and sanctions for lower performing schools. In this study, over 100 teachers from Texas school districts completed open-ended surveys on how they prepare students for TAAS and the effects of the test on students, teachers, and schools. Twenty of the survey respondents engaged in interviews to gather in-depth data on their perceptions of TAAS. Results provide preliminary indications that, for many schools, high-stakes testing has become the object rather than the measure of teaching and learning, with negative side effects on curriculum, teacher decision making, instruction, student learning, school climate, and teacher and student self-concept and motivation.

scholarly journals Testing, Stress, and Performance: How Students Respond Physiologically to High-Stakes Testing

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Heissel ◽  
Emma K. Adam ◽  
Jennifer L. Doleac ◽  
David N. Figlio ◽  
Jonathan Meer
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Physiological Stress ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Regular School ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Performance

We examine how students' physiological stress differs between a regular school week and a highstakes testing week, and we raise questions about how to interpret high-stakes test scores. A potential contributor to socioeconomic disparities in academic performance is the difference in the level of stress experienced by students outside of school. Chronic stress – due to neighborhood violence, poverty, or family instability – can affect how individuals' bodies respond to stressors in general, including the stress of standardized testing. This, in turn, can affect whether performance on standardized tests is a valid measure of students' actual ability. We collect data on students' stress responses using cortisol samples provided by low-income students in New Orleans. We measure how their cortisol patterns change during high-stakes testing weeks relative to baseline weeks. We find that high-stakes testing is related to cortisol responses, and those responses are related to test performance. Those who responded most strongly – with either increases or decreases in cortisol – scored 0.40 standard deviations lower than expected on the high-stakes exam.

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