Is accuracy enough?

This is my route from a walk I took last weekend as mapped by MapMyWalk on my iPhone.

I am stunned by how accurate this map is. The little red bumps where the arrows point are where I strayed from my regular route - by about ten feet in each instance.

When I look at my house in GoogleMaps, the blinking blue dot is on the left when I am in the family room and on the right when in the bedroom. Somehow the technology, bouncing a signal from cell tower to satellite and back a few times, knows precisely where my phone - and by extension - I am.

Increasingly we have data on our students that can pinpoint their skills location as well. In reading, writing (or writing mechanics anyway), and math, we test our students using NWEA MAPS assessments - up to three times a year for some kids. Making sure labs are ready, students are entered into the tracking system, and training proctors are all part of the tech department's job - and we do it well and with a smile on our faces, being good team players.

But I have personal concerns. Since we have so much and hopefully such accurate data on these very basic skills, will we be content in assessing only what children will one day find on the ACT or SAT? The assessments that quantify how many "right answers" can be mustered? 

Angela Duckworth, among others, study and report on "grit" as a more accurate predictor of student success, than ACT/SAT scores. But can we say we value characteristics like grit (and creativity and innovation and problem-solving and critical-thinking and transliteracy and artistic/athletic talent and ...) when all we measure is readin', writin' and 'rithmatic?

The program that generated the map above also showed me my gains and losses of elevation, my speed in one mile increments, how far to the .01 of a mile the distance I traveled, and even how many calories I burned. And I have no reason to doubt those number were any less accurate than the path it showed I walked - including the pit stop. 

But the data did not show if the sky was blue, if I saw a rare bird, or if the visit I had with my neighbor was pleasant. They don't tell if the 2.89 miles I walked was a challenge for me or simply a slacker's stroll. The data don't predict if walking is something I do out of joy or compulsion. 

When I read of kindergartens dropping play time so they can spend more hours on "pre-literacy" activities, elementary schools eliminating recess to gain time for test prep, and secondary schools closing computer labs for weeks on end to accommodate online testing, I shudder. I want another educational environment for my grandchildren - and yours.

Comments

[Andrew Pass]

I totally agree that data detailing a students' abilities on academic skills is insufficient. Instead, I would argue that teachers should get to know the whole student. This means that teachers should ask themselves what they can learn about individual students from watching them play. Teachers should consider what they can learn about individual students from the decisions that they make. In addition to academic grit, students should learn to enjoy the beauty of the world that exists around them and the beauty within their own selves. Teachers must use every tool at their disposal to help students learn to do this, I think.

@apasseducation

[Doug Johnson]

Thanks for the comment, Andrew. The most important things about education are often impossible to assign a number to.

Doug

[gay]

this good for student,students can easy learning
http://ketutadi3122.blogspot.com/