Why You Can Pass Tests But Still Fail in the Real World

Presentation Date: 

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Location: 

Making the Large Classroom Small: The Flipped Classroom, Winona State University (Winona, MN)

Presentation Slides: 

Why is it that stellar students sometimes fail in the workplace while dropouts succeed? One reason is that most, if not all, of our current assessment practices are inauthentic. Just as the lecture focuses on the delivery of information to students, so does assessment often focus on having students regurgitate that same information back to the instructor. Consequently, assessment fails to focus on the skills that are relevant in life in the 21st century. Assessment has been called the "hidden curriculum" as it is an important driver of students' study habits. Unless we rethink our approach to assessment, it will be very difficult to produce a meaningful change in education.