What if Tests Weren't Multiple Choice?

Which comes first, assessments or curriculum? In this educator's version of the chicken and the egg, the assessments come first because they drive instruction. Teachers teach what will be tested.
This was a theme of "What if Tests Weren't Multiple Choice?" at an EWA dinner sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Jim Gee, professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University, said video games combine tests and learning. Players move forward as they learn and master skills. Ah, if only school were like the game he holds up as example: World of Warcraft! Some of the virtues of video games include problem solving skills, lots of data tracking progress, innovation and collaboration.
If we stick with the old testing system, Gee said, we will be shut out of the emerging market for learning, much in the same way that old energy technologies leave us stuck in a system not geared for the future.
Dan Schwartz, professor of education, said, that while there is room for improvement, academic standards tend to better than the tests. He showed a complex California standard in U.S. history -- one that would require lots of deep thinking -- and then showed the test item that was based on an isolated fact. What he thinks is important is having the skills to learn and keep on learning.
He highlighted one experiment in which students who first were told how to do something and then practiced it did worse than those who were given a chance to invent before being told. The inventors did even better when they were given new material to tackle within the test. Schwartz has digital lessons which gives students a chance to be creative and learn.
One of the reasons this is so important, Schwartz said, is tests affect what the public thinks is important to learn. If test items change, he said, so also will what counts as useful learning. And that could bring about significant change.
Some of us have stories about the multiple planes needed to get to this conference. The flight of the third speaker, Connie Yowell, director of education at the MacArthur Foundation, was cancelled.
Linda Lenz of Catalyst Chicago and Catalyst Cleveland, read some words from Yowell in a MacArthur report on digital media and learning. The remarks focused on how MacArthur had turned its attention from schools to learning, in particular how students learn outside of school via digital media.
"We soon discovered that a dramatic transformation is under way in how young people think, learn, socialize and engage in civic life," Yowell wrote.