The Australian Government Has Implemented A Nationwide Mandatory Literacy And Numeracy Test For All Pre Service Teachers

While a few standardized tests over a student’s school career can be helpful to make sure students are on track and teachers are educating their students, the United States education system has far too many standardized tests. The U.S should reduce the number of tests given to students each year. The current amount of testing stresses students and forces teachers to “teach to the test”. Standardized testing has not and will not improve the American school

Curriculum is designed to develop successful learners. Confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens (MCEECDYA, 2008, p.13). In 2008, the Australian Government promised to deliver a fair and equitable curriculum for the national’s educational system, taking the task away from the State and Local Governments. The purpose of this was to create an even level of education throughout the country whether in Hobart of Cape York, and to ensure our nations position into the 21st century. This essay will demonstrate the Nation’s curriculum, its structure and development ready for its initial implementation in 2011.

Ever since standardized testing started being used as a way to evaluate the intelligence of students and the teachers’ ability to educate, the standard of actual education has been diminished immensely. Standardized testing is used in most public and private schools to analyze students’ knowledge. It has affected the way in which students learn and has corrupted the methods teachers use to educate. In some cases, English-Learning and disabled students face discrimination from teachers since teachers have more responsibility to have a high number of passing students. Some countries around the world don’t use standardized tests to rank their students or schools and yet they have been successful. Standardized tests are not efficient on making students learn, they should not be used to evaluate students’ knowledge.

Standardized tests are exams that are supposed to measure a child’s academic knowledge but have long been a controversial subject of discussion. Although it is one method to see how a child is performing, is it the best method? Standardized testing can be biased or unfair, inhibit both the teacher’s and the children’s creativity and flexibility, affect funding for schools, cause untested subjects to be eliminated from the curriculum, and cause anxiety for children and teachers.

Numeracy development is important for all children as maths is an important part of everyday life. The way in which maths is taught has changed greatly over the years. When I was at school we were taught one method to reach one answer. Now, particularly in early primary phase, children are taught different methods to reach an answer, which includes different methods of working out and which also develops their investigation skills. For example, by the time children reach year six, the different methods they would have been taught for addition would be number lines,

In exploring the Australian Curriculum, it becomes apparent that this curriculum was developed to encompass a wide range of skills and abilities that will be needed to enable young Australians to become productive and successful members of society of the future. The influence of a range of different curriculum models and education theories has bought together a comprehensive overview of what the Australian education system will deliver and how this can be accomplished.

What I have learned for the first four weeks of the course has prompted me to initiate new policies in testing administration together with training workshops for teachers in my division. The aims are to work toward better quality test practice: using tests for reflection on students’ progress rather than failing or passing students and improving the present test giving practice in weak areas such as validity, reliability, wash back.

The idea of Stand-alone Key Skills, Basic Skills or Functional Skills lessons or units can prove very effective in certain circumstances, however is not always suitable for all learners. Within further education embedding Literacy and Numeracy is generally encouraged and although in our department we have lecturers who teach more theory than practical (and vice-versa) there are no specific LLN/ICT teachers. When teaching I aim to embed a lot of numeracy during practical sessions with the students in different ways. One of the benefits of this is that they don’t often realise they are doing it: the idea of doing maths to some students is quite scary and hiding it within a recipe or task is a good way of developing skills. Dishes often have very specific recipes that need to be followed exactly; students need to be able not only to read and follow the recipes, but weigh and measure accurately too. Another simple way for me to embed LLN is to give a recipe and ask the student to double of half the quantities in order to make enough portions.

For more than 50 years’ students have been pulling out no. 2 pencils and filling in the circles. (“Fetcher”). Today students 4th grade to 11th grade is put under extensive pressure due to the testing. Instructors begin the year informing students what the curriculum will be for the test. Every chapter read, every test taken, each quiz and group discussions all should enhance the standardize testing.

The 1980s brought a new reform movement in education, accompanied by a new emphasis on testing. The effort to improve education at all levels included the use of standardized tests to provide accountability for what students are learning. Minimum competency tests, achievement tests, and screening instruments were used to ensure that students from preschool through college reached the desired educational goals and achieved the minimum standards of education that were established locally or by the state education agency. As we continue in a new century, these concerns have increased.

The article argues vital concerns regarding educational testing’s. Educational testing has been a concern to

The National curriculum states that in Mathematics teachers should use every relevant subject to develop pupils’ mathematical fluency. Confidence in numeracy and other mathematical skills is

“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.

In Australia as of 2016 students who graduate from their bachelor of education degree are required to partake in a literacy and numeracy testing in an effort to make sure that all the teachers who are going to teach members of our families or our own children are up to the task and is “aimed at weeding out unfit graduates before they enter the classroom.”[5] Statistics on how effective the testing is are yet to be released for Australian educators as it was introduced this year with trial taken place last year according to Stewart Riddle’s article on theconversation.com.au[5]. This begs the question, is all this testing actually worth it and is it beneficial to the students they are teaching. I will provide an argument for both sides and use critical literacy skills to determine if Stuart Riddle’s statement is actually fictitious or valid.

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.