| Subject: Re: Assignment #3 |
Author:
Juliana Hopkins
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Date Posted: 20:14:39 06/22/10 Tue
In reply to:
Dr. M-J
's message, "Assignment #3" on 12:17:50 06/19/10 Sat
As stated in the Intelligence PowerPoint notes, testing for one's competency is "quantitative." The amount of correct answers infers "intelligence" or a lack thereof. From an "intelligence perspective, development is continuous." Therefore, these assessments are measurements of how much you know rather one's demonstration of such knowledge. In my opinion, IQ testing is not a reasonable means by which a person's mental capacity is measured.
During my first-year of teaching within the Memphis City Schools, I witnessed the effects the "dreaded" end of the year T-CAP had on instruction. This standardized test was used to gauge a school's academic success. The fate of the school, from an operational standpoint, largely depended on these test scores. Aside from this, the students' individual scores determined their class ranking and placement.
The pressures of the test are increasingly evident at "striving schools" such as mine. As a Spanish teacher, I was thankfully exempt from the demands of the T-CAP. Yet, it still affected my teaching. There were many instances in which my lessons would be interrupted or class would be cancelled in order to make room for T-CAP test preparation. Teacher effectiveness is solely based on how high students score on the test, therefore many teachers were simply teaching to the assessment. I witnessed the frustration and lack of motivation demonstrated by the students due to the replacement of engaging lessons with practice tests.
Learning another language requires a hands-on approach. All of the lesson ideas I received from the World Languages department, proved to be highly effective and appealing to various learning styles. I noticed that the majority of the students, who excelled in my class, made up a large percentage of those that scored low on the T-CAP. I found this very interesting since, in my opinion, it is much more challenging to learn a second language than memorize answers to an assessment. It had to have been because my lessons required 100% participation and application. This lead me to believe that standardized intelligence testing did not demonstrate a student's "ability to adapt." I believe in the qualitative approach towards accumulating intelligence.
I found myself to share similar sentiments as my students while taking the online intelligence tests. My opinion towards standardized assessments did not change as a result. For example, I found the general IQ test to be very long and redundant. There were various sections to the tests; yet, the format of each question was quite similar to the last. Once I reached the word problems, I grew very tired of answering the long, wordy, logic problems. I can see how students would grow tired of having to read through all of these. The results of the tests were useful in that they detailed my “intelligence” standing relative to that of the average population. I found these results to be accurate according to how well I was able to use prior knowledge in order to give correct answers. Yet, I do not see how one may obtain these answers if their forte does not lie in remembering large amounts of information. On the other hand, the Cultural Intelligence test posed to be a challenge for me. Although I scored within the adequate range, I found myself guessing on many of the questions. The Emotional Intelligence test was beneficial in that one could apply the information given to real-life experiences. I can see my students excelling more through this type of testing rather than the traditional, standardized intelligence assessments. All in all, my opinion still stands. I do not see the benefit of IQ testing towards the enrichment of cognitive thinking.
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