Standards and Testing

     I think that the most common place I have seen standards being met is in the science learning at my service learning placement. The kids switch classrooms so that they have a different teacher for science, and then they are taught about rocks, water cycle, etc. What is interesting is I read through the 4th grade science core after I did my service learning and I could see the exact standards that they pulled from to teach the lessons. 

     To me it seemed that maybe math was getting a little less emphasis than science. It didn't seem like they worked on it for as long, and I had a harder time seeing the resemblance to the standards. I noticed some though, like the standard of being able to find factor pairs was addressed really well in the classroom.

     I didn't really ask my teacher what she thought of standardized testing. However, I remember when I had her in the fourth grade and from what I remember a lot of teachers were frustrated with standardized testing. Either that or they were just sick of us complaining about the tests. However, I do remember a lot of teachers feeling like standardized testing was very stressful. The reason for this is because they felt like they had to review the whole year in just a couple of weeks.

Standards in schools provide a way for teachers to plan their lessons!