A friend forwarded me a video last night, and I am really wondering about the implications. This shows a class of second graders following a protocol apparently developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association, to share “fabulous data” with elementary students. I have not worked with this organization, so I would be interested in hearing from teachers who have.
I am concerned about the focus on numerical scores, and arbitrary targets. I really question what these numbers mean to the students. Are they truly excited about learning? Or hitting their target goals?
In May, this presenter will be back, and, the teacher says “I don’t think we’ll let her down, because we have been working extremely hard.” I have no doubt the teacher and students are working hard. But I wonder if these numbers really are what we should be using to measure learning?
What do you think? Should we be working to get our students invested in their test scores? Or does this distract us from better reasons to learn?