Reflection 2

This week I found our topic of “teaching to the test” extremely interesting. From my experience as a student, I see that teachers constantly teach to the test because they want their students to succeed and have the skill set to be competitive in today’s job market. I think that teaching in this manner has its advantages and disadvantages. To begin, the tests are important because they contain information that students need to know; this is determined by the state board of education. These types of tests standardize education across the board, which is good because it provides an overview of how schools are doing across the board. There are disadvantages as well because this type of teaching does not encourage critical thinking skills; it encourages the memorization of facts or knowledge. According to the passage from Martin, "all learners, at all ages need and benefit from active involvement with the explicit application of higher level cognitive strategies" (Martin 211). The quote is so important because it reveals the truth- all students will benefit from being taught to think critically. I believe that if more students thought critically then education could become much more interesting for students. I truly hope that solely “teaching for the test” can be expanded to include critical thinking skills.

Reference-

Martin, D. (n.d.). Thinking and the special-needs learner. In Developing Minds: A Reasoning Book for Teaching Thinking (pp. 211-215).