Teach42

A post from Ideas and thoughts from an EdTech focuses on a student who figured out how to unlock a function on a calculator that enabled him to cheat on a state test.

He brings up a fantastic point about it.

Without getting into the whole calculator or no calculator debate, we need to rethink many of our ideas about assessment and evaluation. What engineer or scientist or business person would ever be expected to do their work without technology? Would an architect be asked to design a building without his/her software application?

Amen. There’s more to the equation than simply memorizing how to figure out a problem. This student was genuinely thinking outside the box. A+ in my book. I remember in high school, I had a science teacher who told me a story that has really stuck with me. You were supposed to use some device to figure out the height of the building three different ways. If I remember correctly, you were supposed to use angles and shadows and some math formulas to figure it out. One student wrote down this as an answer:

1) Drop the device off the top of the building. Time how long it takes to hit the ground. Calculate the height from that.
2) Tie a piece of string to the device. Slowly lower it from the roof. Measure the piece of string.
3) Call the building manager. Tell him you’ll give him this shiny new device if he’ll tell you how high the building is.

Obviously the student didn’t calculate the question the way the teacher wanted him to, but he did show a ton of creativity and did list three valid, if a bit unusual, answers. Would I have given him credit for that? To be honest, I’m not sure. But what i do know is that he’s probably going to go pretty darn far with that attitude.

So which is more important? Providing the correct answer by the requested method or figuring out a correct answer regardless of your method? It’s an important question given the tools that are rapidly becoming transparent in our society.

Students may have to be stripped search before tests in order to insure they don’t have access to technology. I’m hoping there’s a better way. I hope that we assess things that measure how we use the technology not if we use the technology. I think it would be akin to asking a mechanic to fix our car without her own tools. Too many tests still give way too much importance to knowledge and memorization. This math test was in part measuring student’s ability to convert decimals to fractions. If there’s no context in which that skill is measured, it’s pretty meaningless. I don’t really care if a mechanic can use a ratchet set. Frankly I don’t care what tools she uses as long as she can fix my car. Does that make sense?

In a word, yes.

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