Why Do We Test

“Most teachers in America use their classroom assessments either to assign grades or to motivate students to study harder,” says Popham. “This deprives them of one of the most powerful, research-proven tools for improving student learning – using insights from classroom assessments to reteach, help struggling students, and gain insights that improve teaching.”

-J. Popham

Too often we lose sight of the best reason to test - gauging the level of mastery for the purpose of determining what should be re-taught (or "better" taught), and what students know that can be built on for subsequent instruction.

Testing is an area where educators can learn lessons from the athletic world. For coaches, each game is a test. Following each game, coaches go back to practice and try to teach their players to correct mistakes made in games. They re-teach, examine their practice plans for new methods of teaching the same concepts, contact other coaches for ideas about how to teach certain concepts - in short they use the assessment as a learning tool. Some teams learn more than others - our own woeful National Football League franchise, the Detroit Lions, has a lot of material for "re-teaching". Yesterday I listened to our new head coach, Jim Schwartz, talk about the re-teaching they did during a bye week. He and his coaching staff watched film of other teams, watched film of his own team, and spent the week trying to use lessons learned from others and themselves to correct mistakes.

The concept of re-teaching is critical. Each Monday our school has a late start so teachers can meet in small teams of teachers to communicate and share ideas. We call these teams "Professional Learning Communities" or PLCs. One of the best reasons for the institution of PLCs is for teachers to work with each other examining data - looking at each other's "game film" - and exploring new ways to better teach concepts. District wide our high schools have developed common final assessments so that we can access the best our entire district has to offer. Teachers across the district can meet to compare their students' performances on assessments and share ideas for preparing students.

Using assessment data to identify areas to re-teach, or better teach, is the most relevant and significant reason to test. I once heard well-known educator Pedro Noguera say "I can teach my dog Spanish - that doesn't mean he'll be able to speak it." It's what our students learn that is important - not what we teach. If they aren't learning we need to adjust our instructional methods, and student assessments provide a blueprint for that work.