One of our members sent the following email. As we traded email about the issue, we concluded that sharing her questions and concerns might be informative to the larger community thus I am creating this discussion. We look forward to hearing from you and your experiences.
Appreciatively,
Daryl
My GED team and I have been taking the CB Official Practice Tests via GEDTS and are disturbed that we cannot access the actual test results vis-à-vis which questions our students got correct and which ones they missed.
This is problematic in adult education because our students are less homogenous in their abilities, their life circumstances, and their needs as adult learners. GEDTS no doubt will reply that it gives a general "study this skill to improve," recommendation vs. teach to the test, but reviewing actual questions is a teaching method, not teaching to the test. It allows adult educators to get the flavor of that student's thinking and where s/he might have gone astray. We in Colorado have no state funding for adult ed and work in large urban Front Range centers but also in small rural communities, and we need to hone in on particulars, not just reteach general skills.
I'm wondering if any other members work in adult ed and if so, what their thinking is. I plan to approach GEDTS to ask for it to provide more exact information especially since its competitors still offer paper and pencil OPTS (official practice tests).
Comments
GEDTS offers three 2014 series testing experiences, the Free Practice Test, GED Ready™ (the Official Practice Test) , and the actual tests in the four content areas. It isn't clear to me if the person writing about this was referring to the Free Practice Test or to GED Ready™. The GEDTS claims that for GED Ready™ they offer focused study plans, that "GED Ready™ is synced to publisher books and courses and gives every student their own targeted study plan based on the skills he or she needs to work on, including specific guidance on what to study in publishers’ test prep materials." http://www.gedtestingservice.com/educators/gedready
So, is the problem that this person wasn't using the GED Ready™ test, or that she was, but that the study plans didn't provide enough information to help her students?
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
I took the GED Ready practice test for Science yesterday and I had some similar concerns at the end of it. When I clicked on the link "Skills I Can Improve," it said, "Understand and apply scientific models, theories and processes." As a guiding principal for instruction, this directive is so vague and overarching as to be basically not useful. Furthermore, when I went to review my written response to the short answer question, the prompt they displayed was not the same prompt I was given on the test. It made me wonder if I was scored correctly on the written response. Also, they say they will give examples of passing prompts so you can compare, but unless I missed it, I didn't see those examples anywhere.
I did also click on the links for "GED Study Recommendations," but it only gives titles of books and software programs, not specific items or pages or even topics within those publications to study.
I took the Language Arts, Social Studies and Science tests - GED Ready, that cost $6 each. I had the same experience as the writer from Colorado. At the end of the Science practice test, under "Review My Written Answers, I was shown the extended response I had written, and a different prompt from the one I responded to. That is not okay. And I agree with the comments that it's problematic that we cannot access the actual test results to see what students have gotten right and wrong. Having the test company show us a list of skills we need to work on (written in jargon) is not helpful. Nor is it helpful to see a drop-down menu of GED prep books matched with page numbers to study. That seems like a marketing ploy, not something that will actually help students see specifically where their thinking may have gone wrong. And they're charging money for this? I'm not impressed.
It does sound like it is a marketing ploy. How many of our students can afford to purchase the GED books? Not many.
I see two very frustrating issues for teachers and students that GEDTS should be made aware of. The fact that a different prompt comes up when you check your answers to short answer questions is particularly disturbing. Should we take action and send an email to GEDTS with our concerns?
I would generally say that if you think it might be a good idea to email GEDTS, then you should probably do it. They need to hear from as many people as possible so that they take these concerns seriously. In the past, when I have contacted them, I have usually recieved either an explanation of why things have to be a certain way or some effort to fix the issue (for example, technical issues with the computer tutorial). That said, I emailed them over a week ago about issues similar to the ones you mentioned, and I haven't recieved a reply. The testing service may be swamped right now, but still, I would rather make sure that these problems are documented and brought to their attention early on so that they have less impact on our students down the road.
If you do email, I recommend keeping the message focused on the ramifications for your students (their potential customers), and not on your personal outrage, etc. I fear that they already think of adult educators as gut-driven, change-averse, and possibly not so bright. (I distinctly remember the tone of some of the webinars leading up to the change.) The more they hear from reasonable educators with helpful comments and questions, the better.
Rachel and others,
Thank you so much for continuing this discussion and sharing your concerns.
As so many of you suggested, contacting the publishers of any of the alternate assessments is important if we expect any changes in the materials and procedures. We are in the midst of such extensive changes in the field that we have multiple opportunities for improvements and improved communications among us.
We all recognize the importance of specific feedback about students' performance in order to improve instructional and curricular decisions, students' learning and their outcomes.
Kind regards,
Daryl