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Kevin Donnelly: Fads no substitute for teaching
January 05, 2005
HOW successful are Australian students? Based on the results of the past two Program for International Student Assessment tests, NSW Premier Bob Carr argues our students are the best in the world.
The results of the first PISA test, sponsored by the OECD to test 15-year-old students in areas such as literacy, were released in late 2001 and Australian students were ranked among the best performers.
The second round of the PISA test results were released in early December last year. Of the 41 participating countries, Australia was ranked second in reading literacy, fourth in scientific literacy and fifth in mathematics. Based on PISA, it appears Carr has it right. Unfortunately, such is not the case. A week after the PISA results were released, the results of a second international test became public.
Unlike the PISA test, the results of the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, undertaken by the International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement, tell a bleaker story.
Rather than ranking with the best, Australian students performed poorly. Worse still, we were overtaken by a number of countries we had outperformed in previous TIMSS tests.
Australian Year 4 maths students were beaten by 15 countries and 13 countries outperformed our Year 8 students. Even worse, on comparing the results of the 2004 TIMSS tests with earlier TIMSS tests, Australia's results remained static while results for students in the US, England and New Zealand dramatically improved.
Which test carries more weight? The first thing to note is that PISA adopts many of the progressive education fads such as fuzzy maths and whole language that have bedevilled Australian education.
TIMSS, on the other hand, measures more traditional classroom content on the assumption that students need to master essential learning, such as demonstrating an understanding of fractions and decimals and the relationship between them.
Similar to Australia's progressive approach, PISA argues that learning should not be restricted to right and wrong answers where students are made to learn a set body of knowledge. Instead, education must deal with cliches such as real-life problems and life-long learning.
As a result, as noted in the OECD's executive summary of the 2000 PISA results, the traditional view of literacy is redefined, in the edubabble much loved by those committed to education fads: "Knowledge and skills that reflect the current changes in curricula, moving beyond the school-based approach towards the use of knowledge in everyday tasks and challenges."
Based on PISA, it appears education in Australia is on the right track and standards are high. A closer view of the PISA test shows the opposite is the case as the test, when compared with TIMSS, is substandard and flawed.
First, even though the PISA reading test is about literacy, students are not penalised for faulty spelling, grammar and punctuation. If Australian students were corrected the majority would have failed.
To quote from the Australian Council for Educational Research: "Errors in spelling and grammar were not penalised in PISA. It was the exception rather than the rule in Australia to find a student response that was written in well-constructed sentences, with no spelling or grammatical error."
While most employers and parents expect students to be able to spell correctly, the PISA approach is to accept answers such as the following as correct and to give students full marks: "... because before than it disapeared completly and at that time it reapeared [sic]."
A second problem with PISA is the way the test adopts fuzzy maths in opposition to the more traditional approach. The PISA test ignores student ability to master mathematical operations and calculations, preferring to focus on problem-solving and guesswork.
The results are clear to see. Not only do many of our universities now have remedial classes for first-year science and maths students but, as a visit to the local market demonstrates, most teenagers are incapable of mental arithmetic.
Unlike PISA, with its faddish approach, the TIMSS test focuses on what is taught in terms of essential mathematics/science content. TIMSS also identifies effective classrooms by analysing the characteristics of those systems that perform best.
Effective classrooms are those where teachers actually teach, instead of "facilitating", and where more time is spent on whole class work instead of students working individually or in groups.
Successful systems, such as those in Singapore and the Netherlands also have succinct syllabus documents that focus on essential learning, especially during the early years and which give teachers a clear and easy-to-follow road map of what is to be taught.
There is regular testing and the assumption is that students should only progress after they have mastered the set work. This approach is the opposite of what happens in most Australian classrooms.
NSW curriculum, for example, as noted by the Vinson Report, is cumbersome and bureaucratic and teachers complain that in attempting to cover so much ground students miss out on the basics.
More traditional skills, including mental arithmetic, rote learning times tables and mastering algorithms such as long division, are ignored in favour of calculators and problem-solving and students are promoted from year to year without a clear sense of whether they have passed or failed.
In most English classrooms, phonics has given way to the whole language approach where, instead of learning the relationship between letters and sounds, students are taught to look and guess.
The result? According to the 1996 national literacy test initiated by the Howard Government, approximately 30 per cent of primary students failed to meet the minimum standard considered essential if they were to cope with future learning.
Last year, a second survey carried out by the ACER concluded that about one-third of Year 9 students lacked the literacy skills needed to cope with the demands of the senior school curriculum.
Significant for Australia is that countries that have improved their performance in TIMSS have dropped progressive fads in favour of a more academic approach. These include the US and England. It's an approach based on teachers teaching, students knowing right and wrong answers and mastering the basics.
Kevin Donnelly is author of Why Our Schools are Failing.
BRON:www.theaustralian.news.com.au
January 05, 2005
HOW successful are Australian students? Based on the results of the past two Program for International Student Assessment tests, NSW Premier Bob Carr argues our students are the best in the world.
The results of the first PISA test, sponsored by the OECD to test 15-year-old students in areas such as literacy, were released in late 2001 and Australian students were ranked among the best performers.
The second round of the PISA test results were released in early December last year. Of the 41 participating countries, Australia was ranked second in reading literacy, fourth in scientific literacy and fifth in mathematics. Based on PISA, it appears Carr has it right. Unfortunately, such is not the case. A week after the PISA results were released, the results of a second international test became public.
Unlike the PISA test, the results of the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, undertaken by the International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement, tell a bleaker story.
Rather than ranking with the best, Australian students performed poorly. Worse still, we were overtaken by a number of countries we had outperformed in previous TIMSS tests.
Australian Year 4 maths students were beaten by 15 countries and 13 countries outperformed our Year 8 students. Even worse, on comparing the results of the 2004 TIMSS tests with earlier TIMSS tests, Australia's results remained static while results for students in the US, England and New Zealand dramatically improved.
Which test carries more weight? The first thing to note is that PISA adopts many of the progressive education fads such as fuzzy maths and whole language that have bedevilled Australian education.
TIMSS, on the other hand, measures more traditional classroom content on the assumption that students need to master essential learning, such as demonstrating an understanding of fractions and decimals and the relationship between them.
Similar to Australia's progressive approach, PISA argues that learning should not be restricted to right and wrong answers where students are made to learn a set body of knowledge. Instead, education must deal with cliches such as real-life problems and life-long learning.
As a result, as noted in the OECD's executive summary of the 2000 PISA results, the traditional view of literacy is redefined, in the edubabble much loved by those committed to education fads: "Knowledge and skills that reflect the current changes in curricula, moving beyond the school-based approach towards the use of knowledge in everyday tasks and challenges."
Based on PISA, it appears education in Australia is on the right track and standards are high. A closer view of the PISA test shows the opposite is the case as the test, when compared with TIMSS, is substandard and flawed.
First, even though the PISA reading test is about literacy, students are not penalised for faulty spelling, grammar and punctuation. If Australian students were corrected the majority would have failed.
To quote from the Australian Council for Educational Research: "Errors in spelling and grammar were not penalised in PISA. It was the exception rather than the rule in Australia to find a student response that was written in well-constructed sentences, with no spelling or grammatical error."
While most employers and parents expect students to be able to spell correctly, the PISA approach is to accept answers such as the following as correct and to give students full marks: "... because before than it disapeared completly and at that time it reapeared [sic]."
A second problem with PISA is the way the test adopts fuzzy maths in opposition to the more traditional approach. The PISA test ignores student ability to master mathematical operations and calculations, preferring to focus on problem-solving and guesswork.
The results are clear to see. Not only do many of our universities now have remedial classes for first-year science and maths students but, as a visit to the local market demonstrates, most teenagers are incapable of mental arithmetic.
Unlike PISA, with its faddish approach, the TIMSS test focuses on what is taught in terms of essential mathematics/science content. TIMSS also identifies effective classrooms by analysing the characteristics of those systems that perform best.
Effective classrooms are those where teachers actually teach, instead of "facilitating", and where more time is spent on whole class work instead of students working individually or in groups.
Successful systems, such as those in Singapore and the Netherlands also have succinct syllabus documents that focus on essential learning, especially during the early years and which give teachers a clear and easy-to-follow road map of what is to be taught.
There is regular testing and the assumption is that students should only progress after they have mastered the set work. This approach is the opposite of what happens in most Australian classrooms.
NSW curriculum, for example, as noted by the Vinson Report, is cumbersome and bureaucratic and teachers complain that in attempting to cover so much ground students miss out on the basics.
More traditional skills, including mental arithmetic, rote learning times tables and mastering algorithms such as long division, are ignored in favour of calculators and problem-solving and students are promoted from year to year without a clear sense of whether they have passed or failed.
In most English classrooms, phonics has given way to the whole language approach where, instead of learning the relationship between letters and sounds, students are taught to look and guess.
The result? According to the 1996 national literacy test initiated by the Howard Government, approximately 30 per cent of primary students failed to meet the minimum standard considered essential if they were to cope with future learning.
Last year, a second survey carried out by the ACER concluded that about one-third of Year 9 students lacked the literacy skills needed to cope with the demands of the senior school curriculum.
Significant for Australia is that countries that have improved their performance in TIMSS have dropped progressive fads in favour of a more academic approach. These include the US and England. It's an approach based on teachers teaching, students knowing right and wrong answers and mastering the basics.
Kevin Donnelly is author of Why Our Schools are Failing.
BRON:www.theaustralian.news.com.au