The Gods of Measurement

Here is a little example of how far behind our children are. I gave a test about the conservation of momentum several weeks ago. It was, as they all are, a multiple choice test. I have Casio scientific calculators in my room for the students to use, and when they plugged in their numbers into the momentum equation (p=mv), the calculator told them the answer was ".1". Now, the answers on the actual test ranged from, "10.0", "1.0", "0.10", and "0.01". I had several students raise their hand to ask why their answer wasn't one of the choices, as they were pretty sure they had done it correctly. The students who asked were not simply the ones who never do homework and could care less about their grades. Some of my best students also failed to realize that "0.10" is the same thing as ".1". And for you scientists out there, we don't even teach significant figures at this level, so that had nothing to do with it.

Now, there is a silver lining to this question. The students were confident enough to say, hey, I know I did this right, so where is my answer? But that is only because they are so comfortable with simply plugging things into equations and getting numbers to pop out, that if the numbers don't match exactly, something must be wrong.

Students aren't taught to think anymore. They consistently do better on questions where they have to simply "plug and chug" than on conceptual questions which test whether they really understand how these concepts relate to each other and to the real world. Math is just something magical they do in algebra class which involves x, y, and some funny graph things. They don't understand that the equation is a relationship between the two variables, that the slope of the graph tells us how one changes as the other changes. Hell, many of my students don't understand division. To them, it is a button on the calculator that gives you a different answer than the multiplication one.

Here's the crux: it's obvious to me that students have been taught that the most important thing in school is having the right answer bubbled in. We actually teach them test taking strategies. Here are the 5 easiest ways to make sure you have the correct answer. Instead of reading the problem, students go through and circle all the numbers and just start multiplying or adding until one of the multiple choices appears on their calculator screen. The reason why that answer is correct has been sacrificed to the gods of standardized measurement. If we assume the test measures mastery of a certain content, and lo and behold our students pass, then we congratulate them on understanding the laws governing the universe. But the tests don't measure mastery or even comprehension. They measure how well students take tests. They incentivize guessing, cheating, and a thin understanding of the material. When confronted with a problem which they don't understand right away, students find it far easier to simply guess and move on instead of working through the problem in a logical, rational way; they cross a few answers out and give the leftovers their best shot. Too often I've seen them cross out the right answer first. If tests are the heaviest weighted grading category, it encourages students to get the highest grade with the least effort; i.e. get a friend to try and snap a picture with their phone.

I understand much of the dilemma in which the education system finds itself. We have to know if what we are trying is working; thus, progress and success must be measured somehow. But when this measurement becomes the point of learning, we have put the cart before the horse; we have made measurement itself the end. We have come to value performance over understanding.

To be fair, my school is not every school, and I am sure some are still doing a great job teaching students how to think for themselves and reason their way through a problem. Most of my students are economically disadvantaged, most are Hispanic, and many might be the first in their family to go through college or even graduate high school. Their lives are very different than mine was growing up. Some have to work to help pay the bills; others have parents who are drug addicts or alcoholics; some have family members who are involved with gang activity. Coupled with this harsh reality, their lives consist of a constant inundation of entertainment and advertisements. This is the Twitter and talking points generation. They digest their world in short, shallow pieces, one sound bite at a time. They are more stimulated than any other, and in turn they are more medicated than any other. How surprised should we be that there is a disconnect between school and the real world? How surprised should we be that the United States is continually falling behind the rest of the world in all areas of education? We have made them this way, how can one science class hope to make any difference now?

Bigger problems are afoot than simply testing or not testing (more on these later in the series). My main point in this post is that our current thirst for data has become self-serving. Tests have become the point of mastery instead of the tool by which we measure it. The eternal teenage mantra "When are we ever going to need to know this" has finally been answered: "It's on the test." We are told to "backwards design" our lessons. In non-teacher speak, that means start with how you are assessing the students' success, and then figure out how you are going to teach the content. While this concept is based on research, when your assessment is nothing but a picky, multiple choice test, then backwards design simply means teaching to the test.

Whenever I am asked the mantra, I explain to my students that, while most of them might not need to calculate the momentum of a cue ball after it collides with the eight ball in real life, the reasoning skills and evidence-based thinking I am teaching is an essential part of being an informed citizen of the modern world. But our tests don't measure that ability, and hence our classes have ceased teaching that ability. As usual, Calvin and Hobbes nailed it...

UPDATE: To clarify, I don't think knowing that the pilgrims landed in 1620 is useless. But when the only reason students are taught it is for a test, THEN it is useless. History teaches us who we are and who we are capable of being. It teaches us about systematic trends and about the power of institutions. These are all important lessons for life in general. The test shouldn't be the point.