Introduction;
Remember back to your days in middle school and high school. For some of us it was yesterday, others years. If you were to take the exams you took back then, let me ask you… would you even pass them? You probably wouldn’t. Now let me ask you again, would you pass the exams you took even last semester? Once again no, you wouldn’t pass. Why? The answer is simple, it stems from the teaching method engrained in almost every middle and high school across the United States. Teaching to the Test, rather than teaching for subject education and knowledge. Teachers have been “teaching to the test”, or in other words only teaching students how to answer questions correctly, but providing no information or insight to the logic and subject behind the questions. This allows the students to do very well on the exams they prepare for, boosting the school’s rating as well as the teacher’s appearance in the eyes of the school board. However, such a method provides no gains in subject knowledge, nor retention of methods used to answer the questions. This means that students quite literally forget almost everything they learn in school, setting back every aspect of the real world one enters upon graduation. If this happens, then what is the point of wasting time in school? I ask you, how does one kill “the test”?
Rationale:
Being a Biochemistry Major at one of the top science schools in the nation, naturally I love science. For fun, as well as for extra money, I tutor students from my old high school. Almost every student I have met at the high school level was so disinterested in science that it hurt me; not to mention the majority of the students at SBU taking science courses to reach a desired occupation. “I just need to pass the next test”, that what they always say to me. “Once they pass the final, I’m set. I don’t need to bother with it again”. Don’t get me wrong, I myself often adopt the same mentality, but for an obscure Darwinian Medicine course, not for the main STEM courses. At the middle and High School levels, teachers are only showing the students how to pass their, as well as the State’s, exams. They don’t worry about the logic and information, the subject knowledge part, that stuff isn’t important, its high test scores they desire. This becomes apparent when I tutor. I ask the “problem” students, as well as the “perfect” students if they can explain conceptual details of basic chemistry… and none could. Not one, even the “A” students. Astounded, I questioned as to why they lacked this knowledge. To which they replied that the teacher never taught it, nor began to explain the information behind it, he just showed how to answer the problems. How can this have been possible in a nationally ranked school? How can students be going through classes without actually learning anything pertaining to the subject? What are they doing for 8 hours a day? Teaching to the test is a useless process, not only does in not help anyone, it hinders the nation as a whole, creating an unknowledgeable mass of “graduated and distinguished” adults. It needs to be stopped, and teachers need to teach to the subject, rather than the test.
Research Plan:
I myself have had plenty experience of teacher’s simply teaching to the test. I went to three separate high schools and have seen a large amount of “good” teachers who teach nothing. I also have access to the school I graduated from, as well as the students within it. I can interview several teachers as well as students I tutor. I can also research and locate the state results on exams, compare them over the years, as well as with national and international standings in basic STEM subjects.
Implications;
It’s simple, if we were to address the topic of teaching to the test, and eliminate it, then students would actually learn and retain information and knowledge of the subjects they study. This could potentially generate a more aware, productive and informed public. As well as advancing nearly every subject field due to the influx of minds being able to address a problem or scenario.
WRT 102.22: Science & Society 
You have a insightful thought about teaching. Your introduction do sparkle me to reflect what I have exactly learned from schools. One question, have you ever come up with a solution for the problem?
The research plan is a little too subjective to me. maybe use some statistic to show that how useless the test are ,maybe?After reading reading this, i find myself thinking maybe it’s not teaching to the test that need to be changed, maybe is the test itself that need to be changed, the whole evaluation system. Great topic.