Testing Times: Ensuring Success
Michael Phillips
Michael Philips gave us a zany and fun glimpse into the principles of test construction (and an invitation to see it again in its entirety online at http://prezi.com/zx8dwynovou3/testing-times-ensuring-success/), insisting we anticipate answers for our as-yet un-posed questions, in groups, in a quite effective way of teasing out the knowledge we might have about the subject—such as, how and to what extent diagnostic, summative and formative assessment impact learning--and to mull over the overlapping meanings and relative importance of Evaluation, Measurement and Testing. He ran us through types and purposes of tests, pointing out that while certain high-stakes tests may rate someone as having a high level of achievement, that score does not necessarily translate into real-world fluency. Washback, which is the students' attitudinal reactions to testing, is a big obstacle to reliability (the replicability of testing results). For him, the most interesting part of the testing cycle is testing for learning, rather than learning for testing. Philips finished up with a great little video reminder of what teaching and learning should feel like.
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