Can a Test Be Fun?
Well, it may be a stretch to say that our 9th graders thought the College Work and Readiness Assessment (CWRA) was fun, but certainly many of them found it interesting and different than any kind of standardized test they had encountered before. Faced with a real-world problem, students had to sort through a range of documents to determine a possible solution to the issue. For instance, a student might have been asked to suggest the best crime-reduction plan to a fictitious mayoral candidate. The 8-12 documents presented gave the students some data and other reports to consider, but not all the evidence was equally valid or unbiased. There were about seven different performance tasks in circulation so not every student worked on the same problem. One student noted that, "The test was pretty cool. It was sort of like the problems we've been asked to think about in our Global Perspectives class."
I helped administer and proctor this on-line test and was very impressed with the seriousness and diligence with which our 9th graders worked on it. Although I had told them the test doesn't "count" per se, I emphasized that it would be a good measure of how well they can think critically about a problem and then articulate (in writing) a possible solution for it. Just about everyone I observed dove into the test with purpose and typed away at their keyboards for more than an hour. What a great testament to the academic promise of the Class of 2016! They will receive their scores sometime in March (because of the vast amount of writing on this exam, it does take a long time for the test-makers to read them and score them). At that time they will have some discussion with their advisors about how they did and what they might want to work on to become more adept at critical thinking and writing a clear, concise analytical essay. This same group of students will sit for the test again in the spring of the senior year; their scores on that round will show (we assume) the improvement over time of their ability to think critically and write persuasively.
Meanwhile, the class of 2013 will be taking the CWRA sometime in April.
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I helped administer and proctor this on-line test and was very impressed with the seriousness and diligence with which our 9th graders worked on it. Although I had told them the test doesn't "count" per se, I emphasized that it would be a good measure of how well they can think critically about a problem and then articulate (in writing) a possible solution for it. Just about everyone I observed dove into the test with purpose and typed away at their keyboards for more than an hour. What a great testament to the academic promise of the Class of 2016! They will receive their scores sometime in March (because of the vast amount of writing on this exam, it does take a long time for the test-makers to read them and score them). At that time they will have some discussion with their advisors about how they did and what they might want to work on to become more adept at critical thinking and writing a clear, concise analytical essay. This same group of students will sit for the test again in the spring of the senior year; their scores on that round will show (we assume) the improvement over time of their ability to think critically and write persuasively.
Meanwhile, the class of 2013 will be taking the CWRA sometime in April.
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