The Alberta Teachers’ Association

November 3, 2009

Jonathan Teghtmeyer, ATA Executive Staff Officer

The week of October 18 ­featured contrasting views of education in Alberta.

At the fall forum of Inspiring Education, held October 18–20, in Edmonton, Albertans were invited to peer into the wide and blue prairie sky to imagine the perfect education system.

Participants listened to speakers on the need to emphasize creativity and critical thinking. Keynote speaker and author Daniel Pink argued that the educated Albertan in 2029 will need to perform tasks that can’t be outsourced or automated. University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera asked participants to embrace weirdness, eccentricity and diversity.

While blue-skying, many participants were also mindful of a fast-approaching perfect storm, and wondered aloud how ­multiple-choice standardized tests could measure the abilities students will need 20 years from now.

On October 22, mathematics educators attended a special session of the annual conference of the ATA’s Mathematics Council, in Edmonton. The session featured a panel discussion on the government’s move to remove the written-response portions of the math and science diploma examinations. The panel included Minister of Education Dave ­Hancock, mathematics professors, classroom teachers and a recent high school graduate.

Much was said during the session about the importance of mathematical literacy and the ability to communicate mathematically. Elaine Simmt, University of Alberta secondary education professor, said, “The mathematically literate person is able to interpret, translate and express their experiences mathematically. Nothing in the classroom is more important than communication.”

While Minister Hancock was clear that the reason for changing the exam format was principally economic, he faced challenges from participants about the limitations of a multiple-choice test in assessing mathematical literacy. Many participants were ­concerned that dropping the written-response questions would mean decreased emphasis on communication. The minister replied, “I find the whole argument about teaching to the exam actually quite difficult. I actually do trust teachers to do what I believe can happen better in the classroom and that’s the communication piece—the literacy piece—which I think the written portion of the exam doesn’t test very well and can be done much better in the classroom.”

Teachers believe that they are right to be concerned about fairness to students—the fairness of a two-hour test with 40 machine-scored questions making up half the student’s grade. However, part of the problem is the emphasis teachers themselves place on that exam.

A view from the classroom

In my first years of teaching Pure and Applied Mathematics 30, I included authentic assessment techniques—journalling, portfolios and projects. In an effort to improve student performance on the diploma examination, I mistakenly shifted my assessment practices to include more multiple-choice and written-response questions. I pored over exam bulletins and results reports; I pulled sample questions and mimicked their style and emulated their tricks.

My students performed increasingly worse on diploma exams.

I had allowed myself to believe that these tests knew my students better than I did. At the same time, I quit challenging my students with rich and authentic tasks that actually required them to think critically and creatively. My early students did well because I used assessments for learning that fostered high-level thought processes that served them well on the diploma exam.

We, as teachers, need to fight for autonomy over our practice. We need to fend off the attacks presented by standardized testing. But we also need to exert our professionalism by exercising sound practice and promoting it whenever we can.

There are always going to be people ready to encroach on the areas of our professional practice that we don’t protect.

Back at Inspiring Education, our table had the opportunity to speak with a senior Alberta Education official in the assessment branch. While he agreed with the speakers that creativity, diversity and divergent thinking are important 21st-century skills for students, he didn’t agree with us that those skills can’t be measured by a standardized test. In fact, he said that if you want to achieve an outcome, then you have to start by measuring it—confirming that Alberta Education knows that teachers will teach to the test, and the government’s just fine with that.


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