I have heard from so many sources that soon national and state wide testing will be completed using computers. At first, I thought this was wonderful! No more bubble sheets. No more tracking errors with students circling one letter in the book, and filling in a different letter on their answer sheet. However, since using ClassScape as a study guide for my student I have been a witness to the difficult challenges it poses.
We teach students strategies to use on paper. Students that struggle remembering to show their work on the same paper as their question, have an even more difficult time showing it on a completely separate piece of paper. Students have trouble figuring out how to highlight and underline on the computer. Teachers need to explicitly teach students how to use those tools. It has to be very comfortable and almost second nature for the students in order for it to benefit them.
I struggle with balancing taking time to teach them how to properly use the tools on the testing sites and taking time to really teach them the curriculum. They need to know how to use the site and the tools they have to offer. However, if they don't know what the question is asking what is the point anyway? I find that the more comfortable students are with computers and testing, the better they will do. Before a big test, show them what they can expect.
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