Questioning the effectiveness of modern assessment techniques, this lecture will be useful for policy workers and teachers responsible for devising pupil tests.
Assessment: the silent killer of learning
Synopsis
In this lecture Harvard, Professor Eric Mazur emphasises why examinations that test only specialised knowledge are not a good measure of pupils’ success. Instead, he argues, success depends on obtaining conceptual knowledge: an understanding of the foundational concepts of a particular discipline. Examinations are rarely capable of testing such knowledge.
Mazur challenges the way we assess pupils and says that current assessment styles have little to do with what we expect from them in the work place. Assessment practices don't focus on 21st century skills but instead on ranking pupils, testing mainly their short-term memory.
To correct this Mazur has developed interactive teaching and examination models, requiring pupils to work on complex problems as teams and learn to think creatively. Mazur believes that the pupil groups should be formed with diversity in mind, particularly as mixed-gender groups regularly achieved better results than groups of either women or men.