The More I Learn The Less I Know
“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know” – Albert Einstein, is the perfect statement of how this semester has taught me to approach learning. Throughout this semester, I am being challenged to rethink who Chad is as a learner and professional. I started this class with the understanding that I only was learning to please society and to advance my career, however, have come to appreciate learning in a whole new way due to understanding myself more. Learning is more than reading and writing, but how a person comes to appreciate the world around them and grows as a citizen. This paper will discuss how I understand myself as a learner today and what influences have impacted me the most. Using active and experiential learning, Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development, and Baxter Magolda’s Theory of Self-Authorship I will discuss who I am as a learner. I will also discuss how Spiritual Development has “slowed/challenged” my development as a learner.
The most important concept I have learned this semester comes from the readings on active and experiential learning. Ambrose & Poklop (2015) discussed how students take away different parts from their experience inside the classroom. They also discussed how students would apply their experiences differently and learning cannot be standardized to fit every student the same way. When thinking about my own learning in the classroom, I found that I was held to a “set standard” that everyone was required to reach. It was a similar situation when it came to standardized test or statewide testing. Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton and Renn (2010) suggested, this type of assessment is skewed because not all students can learn in the same way. I found my...
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...do not completely agree they play a major role in student development. I also still need to define my understanding of what these terms mean to both my personal identity and my professional identity.
In conclusion, I go on slowly learning theory and how it impacts student on college campuses but am quickly learning I have much more to learn when it comes to holistic student development. In my personal development, active and experiential learning and self-authorship are the two biggest components when discussing my self-growth. When it comes to my professional development Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development and defining my understanding of religion, faith and spirituality. As I student, professional, and learner, I have barely scratched the surface of who I am as a learner and need to continue diving into literature and open conversations to grow as an individual.
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
While in college, an individual can “develop competence” by receiving good grades, keeping a healthy status, becoming involved in extracurricular activities, or building a
Pressure is being exerted on students to pass, and teachers to enable their students to pass the standardized tests being presented to them. This takes much classroom time that could be spent instructing students on what might be more valuable information, and instead study for the test by what some consider rote memorization (Silva). Experiments have been done seeing how much different teaching approaches were before and after the implementation of standardized testing (Desimone). These experiments demonstrated how vastly the difference between teaching to the test and teaching what the instructor believes is the most valuable knowledge and the best way to present this knowledge. If there is a disconnect between what America’s teachers believe is best to know, and what is on the examinations, then one of the two is flawed, and it is not likely to be what the teachers are teaching.
Theory of Intellectual and Ethical Development could be used to describe Jeremy in his college
Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.
Standardized tests are unnecessary because they are excruciating to the minds of many innocent students. Each year, the tests get tougher and stricter until the students cannot process their own thoughts. The tests become torturous to the minds of those only starting in the world of tests. The students already battling in the war are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the world of uncreativity and narrowness. As the walls narrow in on them, they are lost and unable to become innovative thinkers. Moreover, the implementation of standardized tests into the public school systems of the United States of America has controversially raised two different views –the proponents versus the opponents in the battle of the effectiveness of standardized tests. Standardized tests require all test takers to answer the same questions; the tests are also scored in a standard manner. Thus, the education system believes that it is fair for everybody to take the same test because it is preparing students for college learning. In reality, intelligence cannot solely be determined by a test score; therefore, standardized tests are ineffective in encouraging learning in educational environments for three reasons: they are stressful, discriminatory, and uncreative.
Standardized testing has taken over the education realm and led to a shift in the institutional goals and values of education. In the last 40 years, standardized exams have changed; they were once used to determine the learning level of students, but now they are being used to determine the teacher’s ability. Standardized tests do not measure education quality and are incorrectly used, leading to the wrongful evaluation of teachers and the limiting of education for students by schools.
Authors Amy Witherbee and Denise B. Geier of “Point: Standardized Testing is the best Way to Establish Education Standards” say, “Standardized tests are important, not for the testing, but for the standards. They are, in essence, a benchmark that when properly done, sets out for students, teacher, parents, and a nation, goals for the next generation” (1). Standardized testing can aid in measuring student success, but they are not always an accurate representation of a student’s knowledge or a teacher’s capabilities. The key phrase in their claim is “when done properly”, which is not something that is easily said or done. It is nearly impossible to ensure that the system is not being corrupt, or to prove that everyone is testing the same way, “standardized” or not. Some students are simply not good test takers. They could be the next Einstein, but when it comes to their ACT scores students may seem as though they lack basic knowledge. Other students may be master test takers but have no comprehension of what they are answering. Sure, they know the nucleus is the center of the atom, but do they know what that means? These tests are much less accurate than their supporters may
Nathan, R. (2005). My freshman year: what a professor learned by becoming a student. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Ninety percent of secondary schools in the world today use standardized tests with only a 60% passing rate. Ankur Singh, a high school student, was ready for his Advanced Placement Classes (AP) but found that his excitement would soon turn into frustration and failing grades. Singh went into his class expecting to analyze character and themes of literature, but instead he found his entire year to be filled with 50 minute, questions based essays to prepare for the upcoming standardized tests. Rather than continuing his outstanding previous pattern of academic excellence, he began to do very poorly in his AP classes. Singh expressed his frustration by stating that all of his AP classes taught specifically around college preparation and standardized tests rather than focusing on genuine learning. He continued to state, “I’m not being challenged. My classes are easy. All I have to do is memorize the textbook and spew it out on the test. I’m not learning anything. I’m not growing.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/09/one-teens-standardized-testing-horror-story-and-where-it-will-lead/) Not only do parents and students disagree with standardized tests, educators are finally standing up against it. At Seattle Garfield high school, the teachers unanimously decided to not administer the reading and math standardized tests. Teachers sent letters to the parents giving the parents an option to opt out of their student taking the test. Teachers comment that these tests are “inappropriate measure of teacher’s effectiveness of teaching.” (http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/when-parents-yank-their-kids-out-of-standardized-tests/281417/) Hiss, a former dean of admissions from Bates College in Lewiston, ...
Learning must begin with the teacher accepting the role of a learner by being willing to study and by being willing to apply oneself to becoming a professional educator, well prepared, and relentlessly endeavoring to advance one’s practice (Frere, 2005). As teachers apply themselves to becoming learners, then they can more aptly educate others. Teachers should not overlook professional preparation; however, they must also consider part of their efforts in scholarship to be constructing relationships with their students.
Standardized testing is not the true test of knowledge. Most students are not always equipped and motivated for it. Even their teachers are afraid of poor test results that they spend more time on test related topics rather than focusing on the main lesson. By doing this, it fairly measures the student’s performance, does a poor job of measuring
One of the biggest problems with standardized testing is that it limits diversity and creativity. When preparing for these standardized tests, teachers are expected to be responsible for a majority of student’s success. This causes teachers to teach to a test and does not allow for growth far beyond the minimum requirement. When one class has a broad range of students, academic wise, t...
By having a standardized curriculum schools are not challenging students. They are creating students that do not challenge what they are learning. Holt (2013) thought that standardized curriculum destroyed student’s freedom of thought, right to question, and the freedom to spread ideas. Every student is the same in a way. Every student is tested the same. The problem is that every student is not the same and every studen...
During my time as a student I have been able to develop the way I learn and interact with others to a degree that has also helped me to mature into a better person. I have come to believe that this maturity will help me to develop into a better thinker as well, one that has the patience to listen and take consideration of what others have to say. I consider the act of learning a two way avenue that has to be taken seriously. It is one that involves the teacher, and the protégé. It has been, and will continue to be, my absolute goal as a student to become a diligent protégé and acquire all of learning my teachers have set in front of me. The way each of them have helped me to think about how my actions, and the way I choose to study my lessons and develop as a student, has made a tremendous impact on my life. This impact is one that I will carry into the future as I myself advance in my professional studies.