Teaching to the Test? by James Popham

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In the paper titled Teaching to the test: high crime, misdemeanor, or just good instruction, James Popham talks about teaching targeted at helping students pass exams and contrasts it with teaching aimed at helping students gain knowledge (Popham 1). Popham describes the kind of teaching whose main purpose is the passing of examinations as item-teaching and the instruction that aims at helping students gain knowledge and perfect their skills as curriculum-teaching.

Item teaching, Popham says, has the effect of giving students the false impression that they know a lot on a certain topic when they can only answer a particular set of questions (Popham 2). For example in an arithmetic class, a teacher can ask a student to find out how many oranges are left after John, who had 12, gives five to Mary. An item-teaching proponent will use this example in class knowing very well that in the test there is a question asking the student to find out how many mangoes are left if Priscilla, who had 12, gives five to Antony. In this regard, the only things that change are the type of fruit and the names of the individuals involved. In contrast, curriculum teaching helps students gain knowledge which they can use to correctly answer completely new questions (Popham 2). An example of this is when a teacher asks her students to find out how many grapes Tom, who initially had five, will have after receiving five others from Peter, with the aim of helping the student learn to use basic addition.

As the paper develops, Popham draws to the conclusion that item-teaching is a vice that needs to be stopped in order to improve the quality of education. To help in the nabbing of teachers practicing in the vice, Popham offers a number of solutions as summarized below:

Teacher self-reports-In this detection plan teachers are surveyed to find out which ones can confess to item-teaching (Popham 5). Popham suggests that the survey can even be devised in such a way that anonymity is maintained in the exercise. However, this approach has one weakness in that the teachers who have been engaging in the practice may not be willing to confess and instead answer the questions presented in a way that will impress the assessors.

Teacher-collected materials-For this method, teachers are asked to collect all the tests and quizzes they gave their students in preparation for the main examinations (Popham 5). These materials are then compared with what was examined with the aim of pointing out similarities. Unfortunately, this method also has a weakness, in the sense that the teachers under review will get rid of incriminating material. Besides it is difficult to keep records of oral exercises.

Pre-announced classroom observations-In this technique, the schools administrators plan assessment sessions to assess the quality of instruction that goes on in classrooms (Popham 5). The teachers are also informed of the impending assessment exercise. The downside to this technique is that because the teachers already know that they will be watched, they can easily structure the particular assessment session to feature curriculum-teaching.

Unannounced classroom observations- Here, the administrators pop in at classes without prior warning (Popham 6). By using this method, the evaluators can catch errant teachers off-guard. However, to effectively pull this strategy off, the administrators will have to completely abandon their daily duties, something that may end up costing the school even more harm.

Student self-reports- In this technique, the administrators set up questionnaires probing students on what they have learnt in regards to testable material (Popham 6). By using this method, the assessors can tell whether the teachers were giving material that is specifically aimed at passing an upcoming examination. The weakness of this arrangement is that because the questionnaires are structured to be anonymous, most students will not bother to fill them in; and those who do might not really give information that could incriminate the tutors.

Score-jumps-According to Popham, extreme improvements in students performance could be an indicator of item-teaching (Popham 6). However, score-jumps on their own cannot confirm improper teaching conduct because the students could actually have improved because of improved instruction.

With all the above detections strategies having loopholes, Popham comes up with what he calls the dual-deterrence detection strategy to help reduce incidence of item-teaching (Popham 7). The first facet of the approach is to ensure teachers are well equipped with assessment literacy. In this regard, all the teachers in a particular region, and especially those under pressure to improve the students test scores should be made aware that giving instruction tailored to help the students pass specific examinations is unethical and urged to shun away from the practice.

The other element of the suggested strategy involves making the policy makers know that pressurizing teachers without giving them clear descriptions of what certain examinations aim at attaining encourages item-teaching. When it comes to high-stakes examinations, the teacher should be made to understand what outcomes are expected in order to come up with a strategy that will implement the curriculum requirements effectively.

Possible solutions for the problem

In order to stop item-teaching, there are a number of methods that can be effectively used. First, is changing what I would like to call exam-swap. In this technique, the institution in charge of setting the examinations can come up with two sets of examinations with questions closely related. One set can be made readily-available to the tutors and the other kept a secret. Later, on examination day, the hidden paper will be offered instead of the one that tutors were made to believe would be the main paper. In this way, teachers that used item-teaching will be caught unawares as their students will have difficulty dealing with the examination. The main advantage of this technique is that it need not be applied every semester. It can be used randomly and with the teachers not knowing what to expect, they will be forced to constantly be on the right side.

Another solution that can effectively tackle the problem of item teaching is completely keeping the tutors in the shadows, regarding the range of questions that will be set. The teachers should be given a syllabus to cover and only made aware that examinations will cover core concepts taught in the units taught in the curriculum. By teachers not knowing what to expect in examinations, they will be deterred from teaching to the test.

Works Cited

Popham, James. Teaching to the test: high crime, misdemeanor, or just good instruction. Los Angeles: University of California, 2009. Print.

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Teaching to the Test? by James Popham

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