Image via WikipediaIn this numbers obsessed society, test makers have figured us all out. They have realized that if they make the test long enough, tedious enough, and fill them with multiple choice or scantron-able answers then we will assume they are valuable. What more is that they have figured out that they can even sell us software that will grade the tests for us, break down all of the date, and create a nice graph. Testing done. Results at hand.
Except if we are to test students, then at the very least we should look at those tests. We should try to decipher their answers, create our own data, and meet with them to discuss it. Yes, a multiple choice test is cleaner and easier but it also provides less of a view into the heads of our students, into their thoughts, into their learning. A clean test that a machine can correct provides us with data, nothing else, points to be graphed with no clear direction or at the very least not a very detailed one.
So if we must test the children, then do them the favor of correcting it yourself. Give their work the time and effort you expect them to put into taking the test. It's the least we can do.
