Re: (edited) AFAIK... (was: "It makes me sad ...") Message #34 Posted by Ren on 23 Feb 2005, 8:51 p.m., in response to message #33 by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)
I'm getting in late (as usual B^)
I haven't taken the NCEES, but I have taken tests B^)
Is "life" an "Open book test"?
I'm being philosophical here. I believe that testing
should be in many ways about "real world" circumstances.
No, learning to load, shoot and clean a weapon is a lesson that should be received before entering the battlefield.
The lessons should teach the student how
to identify the problem and apply existing knowledge to
build a solution, then a test should present the student with
examples they may encounter in real life.
Most Math students hate their test questions to be in essay form. But isn't that how the problem arises in real life?
For example, a person doesn't often encounter in daily life the question:
10% of 23 = ?
But instead, they see a $23 item on sale at 10% off,
and they need to know what the item will cost after
the discount and with taxes added. And they may buy
other items in the same venue, combining various
discounted and non-discounted items. They also should
have to subtract the total from their existing bank balance,
credit card balance or contents of their wallet/purse and
make a judgement of whether they can afford the purchase.
In real life, they may have a calculator in their pocket.
but they probably won't have a Math book.
In real life, a Civil Engineer may be out a remote worksite, with dead cell phone, a calculator, and an Engineer's Pocket Reference (booklet) with formulae and lists of soil properties. But will they know what needs to be formulated?
Will they be able to give a "ballpark figure" as to whether
construction should be continued without major changes in
route, funding, or manpower? Or stopped because of safety
concerns?
An algebra teacher I had this past year, used to work for a logging (woodcutting) company. While there he saw large Matrices calculated which included such things as actual number of trees, their heights and diameters, to determine
the most profitable and sustainable exploitation. It was a real life problem he 'brought' to the classroom to tell us that
matrices will be encountered 'out there in the real world'.
He also used the image of a de-barking machine as analogous to mathmatical "function". It didn't matter what type of
tree went into the debarker, it came out debarked. If an
oak went in, a (debarked) oak came out. If a pine went in,
a pine(debarked) came out... But there wasn't an inverse function for 'debarking'! B^)
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