[Squeakland] Assessment

[Doug Wolfgram]

I hope this isn't off-topic, but it occurs to me that e-toys and Squeak are 
the perfect tool for what I would like to see change at our school...

Recently, we invited Jill Tarter to come and speak at my daughter's 
school.  She was very well received and her promotion of math and science 
was close to my heart, as I believe that all children should have a good 
foundation in the sciences.

Then I started thinking about Alan's demonstration of Squeak and the 
gravity exercises, etc. I realized that from my experience (please correct 
me if I'm wrong) most lower school math and science assessments assess only 
what a child has already learned, whereas with Squeak and e-toys, we can 
assess what they are CAPABLE of learning.

Isn't this more valuable information? Do those of you who are educators 
think this way?  Am I just behind the curve here and all of you regular 
squeakers are saying "duh, we've been doing that?" :)

This has special meaning to me because my daughter, like me when I was in 
lower school, tends to make careless errors on math tests from going too 
fast. So this keeps her out of some of the advanced math pull-outs. Yet the 
kids in those pull-outs come to her for help because she knows the math and 
if she doesn't, can figure it out very quickly or knows who to ask and 
isn't afraid because she is very confident about her ability to understand 
what she will hear as a response. This seems to me to be a very big failing 
in this particular school anyway.

D




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"Interactive Media that WORKS."
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Doug Wolfgram
CEO
GRAFX Group, Inc.
949.433.3641
http://www.personalpresentations.com