My Views on Patrick OMalleys “More Testing, More Learning” free essay sample

In his essay paper â€Å"More Testing. More Learning,† Patrick O’Malley proposes that frequently testing during class would help the students learn and study more. This would not only help to increase student’s performances, but it would also benefit students who are dealing with anxiety. Besides procrastinating students wouldn’t be able to put their work aside. O’Malley thinks he came up with the perfect solution: a test after every unit or chapter, once a week or at least twice monthly, two or three questions that don’t contain multiple choice or short – answers and the test should be only 15 – 20 minutes long. O’Malley’s arguments and studies do not always contain the necessary information to support his position. Some of the arguments and solutions O’Malley suggest throughout his paper even undermine his proposal. O’Malley believes â€Å"the main reason that professors should give frequent exams is that †¦ they [would] provide feedback†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I agree that feedback is really important to know how well you are doing in class, but there are other ways to provide feedback to students. We will write a custom essay sample on My Views on Patrick OMalleys â€Å"More Testing, More Learning† or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page O’Malley supports his argument with a Harvard Study. â€Å"[Harvard Students] believe they learn most in courses with ‘many opportunities to see how they are doing’. Students believe it is important that teachers provide feedback, but in the Harvard study O’Malley is using, the students don’t talk about feedback they get through testing. â€Å"A recent Harvard study notes†¦ students feel they learn least in courses that have ‘only a midterm and a final exam, with no other personal evaluation. ’† (Light. Qtd in O’Malley) The Harvard study’s main focus is about providing feedback to the students, because â€Å"[a] recent Harvard study notes students’ ‘strong preference for frequent evaluation in a course. ’† (O’Malley). While O’Malley’s main focus in his proposal paper is on more testing, what makes this study irrelevant for O’Malley’s paper. I do believe feedback is really important, because like I earlier said, it shows how well you are doing in class. And by following up on your feedback you can improve your skills. Think about feedback from essays, feedback from assignments, feedback from projects, etc. The second study O’Malley mentions is a review of several studies based on student learning. â€Å"[Students] who take weekly quizzes achieve higher scores on final exams†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Frederikson) This study looks relevant, because this is what O’Malley’s paper is about, more testing will bring better results. But if we take a closer look, than O’Malley does not provide us enough information. First of all the study dates from the year 1984 what makes this study inaccurate. A second flaw is the fact O’Malley does not give us more information about the quizzes. There is a possibility that the quizzes are classical where, at the beginning of the class, the teacher asks questions and then randomly chooses someone to answer. The quiz can also be open book, where students get questions on paper to answer and can use their books and notes. There are different ways how professors can give a quiz. Also the content of the quiz is important. When you ask open questions, you can test the students on their knowledge, because with multiple-choice, students can guess if they don’t know the answer and still have the answer correct. A third flaw is the fact that O’Malley is talking about professors, that they should give frequent exams so they would provide feedback to the students. In this study Frederikson is not talking about feedback students get from weekly quizzes. He is talking about the fact students knowledge increases when they take weekly quizzes. If O’Malley had provide us more detailed information than this study would maybe have been relevant. Another argument that O’Malley point out is that â€Å" [greater] frequency in test taking means greater frequency in studying for tests’, but that means that students would have to make time to study for every class they take every week on top of the hours of homework they need to do. I believe he is making a good point, but he claims [if] students had frequent exams in all their courses, they would have to schedule study time †¦ [and] develop a habit of frequent study time. † For a full time student that would maybe be reasonable, but there would be a big chance that some students won’t be able to have free time between their classes, homework and studying. O’Malley does not think about students that are combining their studies with work, or people that combine their studies and have a family. In addition to the frequent studying, O’Malley thinks that it would decrease anxiety and students would not be able to procrastinate, to prove his point he is using results of a study that is only based on one university. â€Å"Researchers at the University of Vermont found a strong relationship among procrastination,  anxiety and achievements. † (O’Malley) O’Malley does not indicate that the research was done on students that are attending this university, neither how many students participated and if the students were attending on a full-time or part-time base. He does not tell us if the test is accurate or not and besides that, there are no other studies’ O’Malley uses to compare with. O’Malley doesn’t have a big support with this study, because it has a lack of information. So this research does not prove if it would help students with anxiety and procrastination among other universities. In my view, coming from a family from teachers including myself, I believe that frequent studying would benefit students in certain areas like anxiety, procrastination, etc. But there is no guarantee that it would, because we cannot classify students according to their personality or abilities. Every student is different and there are a lot of factors that determine that, think about stress, study habits, personal priorities, their background, etc. You have students that take their studies seriously and would do anything to achieve their goal, some of them have to work really hard and for others it can be very easy. While other students are happy if they pass with the minimum requirements. And then you have the students that are just attending college so they would not have to enter the work field yet. I strongly believe it is not the responsibility of the teachers, in college, to help the students how to study by giving more in-class testing. It is the student’s decisions if he or she believes frequent studying would help, and if so, to actually do it. When O’Malley describes the opposing arguments in his paper he responds on them with an alternative, but that interferes with his ideal solution. One of those opposing arguments contains the limited time there is available in class. O’Malley’s solution would be in -class testing â€Å"†¦ could be reduced to every other week or their length to 5 or 10 minutes. † â€Å"In courses where multiple-choice exams are appropriate, several questions could be designed to take only a few minutes to answer. † (O’Malley) The solution he gives here is different than the ideal he proposes. Every week testing, changes into every other week while the ideal length is 15 to 20 minutes, he reduces it to 5 till 10 minutes. Also the multiple – choice answers and the short answer on question is the opposite of what he wants in his ideal solution. The same thing happens when O’Malley talks about â€Å"†¦frequent exams†¦take too much time to read and grade. † He gives solutions as skimming through the text; no letter grade but a plus, minus or check; exams every third or fourth week; etc. These solutions totally undermine his own proposal, because here O’Malley proposes in class test not every other week anymore, but goes now to every third or fourth week. In his proposal O’Malley makes it clear that weekly testing is important, because it would provide students feedback on how they are doing and to create a frequent study habit. If the in – class testing would be every third or fourth week than you can’t create a frequent study habit. Also if the course is semester based or trimester based, than that would mean that you get 3 or 4 test per course. You can’t categorize that under frequently testing. Skimming through an essay would not provide the students of the feedback they need. When you skim through a text, you can get a general idea of what the text is about. If professors have to give you feedback on something they go fast through than the chance is big the feedback is going to be general too. What does not benefit students, because if they get a general feedback like â€Å"your essay was bad, you should change it. † or â€Å"you are doing a good job. † Than the student doesn’t get enough information what would help him to improve or do it better next time. In his conclusion O’Malley sees â€Å"†¦brief – in class exams†¦Ã¢â‚¬  as the only solution, because â€Å"†¦ [it’s] the only way to improve students’ study habits and learning, reduce [students] anxiety and procrastination, and increase their satisfaction with college. Campus administrators should get together behind this effort, and professors should get together to consider giving exams more frequently. † (O’Malley) I do believe that O’Malley has made a strong position in this paper what he wants, and I do believe it is important to find the best solution for both sides. But I know what kind of pressure teachers are in, and it wouldn’t be fair to some professors to change the whole teaching system. Every professor and teacher has his own way of teaching, what makes him/her good in his/her own way. What we can do is for the teachers to choose if they like this kind of teaching method or not. If they do want to try this teaching style out, then they should mention that in their class description. Teachers that think this is impossible can just stay with their own habits and the students can choose whether they take the class or not. This system would not only help teachers, but also students. Some students don’t need in-class exams and are perfectly fine with the system of midterms and finals. There should be room for everybody with their own choice.