"Standards are critically important. Standardization is a waste of time and money."

Let’s try a thought experiment.   Let’s assume we live in a culture where all forms of educational achievement tests have been banned and no one is allowed to assign a letter or numerical grade for anything.   How would we evaluate what students are learning?

I was asked what skills I would want to assess if I were to reform "standards-based" education.   David Gibson, who will be one of our participants in a MacArthur Peer-to-Peer Pedgagogy HASTAC Scholars Workshop next fall, posed this question.  Here are the skills I think are important and that I'd love to be able to assess in a meaningful way.

Our entire practice of testing is based on a theory of knowledge that is out of date.  . . . I fear that No Child Left Behind may well be constructed to leave behind exactly those non-linear thinkers, some of whom, if nurtured, might well grow up to Be Like Einstein.

Are multitaskers really worse at multitasking than those who don't multitask? If you read the popular media accounts of the new study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner, "Cognitive Controi in Media Multitaskers," you would believe this to be the case. Now, go back and read the scientific study itself. The results are far less clear than the headlines. Multitasking may make you worse at taking attentional tests. But, hey! I'm a blogger. I know you multitasking, media-stacking, netsurfing, always-on readers lose attention quickly. Does that make you worse at multitasking--or better?