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mariB
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| Posted: Oct 12 2010 at 6:09am | IP Logged
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After 13 years of homeschooling, I wish I felt more secure in my decisions. We have taken an approach to subjects such as history, science, and religion such as writing narrations and note taking instead of test taking.
I have a friend who just put her high schooler into 10th grade after schooling him at home for several years. He is failing 3 classes and his teacher said that you just can't rely on taking notes. I can't stop thinking about this comment. I cringe at the thought of too many tests. We have done tests in biology in the past and I have felt that although the kids did well on them they did not have long lasting retention on the material.
I have loved our approach to the way we home school now, but am I really preparing our kids for when they are in college or if by chance they at one point enter school before that?
I have always loved taking the advice of home schoolers much more experienced than me such as MacBeth (love her high school science suggestions btw!) I have always been a gleaner. I have read practically every book on home schooling out there.
What are your thoughts, ideas, experiences, etc. Thanks!
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: Oct 12 2010 at 8:02pm | IP Logged
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I have a few scattered thoughts, Marianne  .
We do what works for us (narrations, discussion, essays, note taking, etc.) This is our primary way of educating.
We spinkle in few tests and only *to practice test taking* more than to grade work, if that makes sense.
Once my students are ready to take a course at the community college, we know that they will be learning *how to take tests* which may affect/reduce their grades. We're OK with this. They figure it out.
Sooooooo, we look at test-taking as a skill that can be learned rather quickly when given attention and when needed.
Hopefully the mom of the student who is "failing" can help her student to work with his teachers to separate "inexperience with test-taking" from other skill areas in need of improvement (like essay writing) or lack of mastery of content.
Love,
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lapazfarm
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Pretty much the same as Angie here. I don't do tests. No need to because I know what my child knows and what he doesn't through narrations and discussions.
I will at some point do a little workshop on test-taking strategies to help him with those skills, but I don't see it as any big deal or even completely necessary.
I do agree, however, that note-taking alone won't cut it for most. Narration and discussion are much more important. It is too easy when taking notes to just jot down the info without ever engaging with it. With narration and discussion that just isn't possible.
ETA: and by narration I mean both oral and written narration. I think oral narration is often left off in high school and that is a shame. So many benefits.
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vmalott
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| Posted: Oct 13 2010 at 7:49am | IP Logged
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We don't test here either. I feel bad for the kid that's "failing." My guess is that the teacher is putting more "weight" on the test grades than any other work that is done for the class, which would be a real shame.
Some kids just don't test well, period. My oldest son is attending school full-time for the first time ever (8th grade). The recall for detailed specifics (unlike skills like one uses for language and math) just isn't in his make-up (yet). Like Angie, I do think it is a skill that a kid can learn quickly. Learn how to play "the game", so to speak.
ETA: My oldest is a homeschooled 10th-grader. Didn't want you to think I was coming at this with a jr. high perspective. 
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Erin
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| Posted: Oct 13 2010 at 3:04pm | IP Logged
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lapazfarm wrote:
I do agree, however, that note-taking alone won't cut it for most. Narration and discussion are much more important. It is too easy when taking notes to just jot down the info without ever engaging with it. With narration and discussion that just isn't possible.
ETA: and by narration I mean both oral and written narration. I think oral narration is often left off in high school and that is a shame. So many benefits. |
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I've been mulling this all night, nodding my head in agreement, yesterday whilst teaching my teens I realised the necessity of oral narration. I was actually thinking in relation to Angela's post, oral narrating requires the ability to draw the most important information from the material and relate it in the most succinct manner. This is not always an easy task for some children.
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Elena
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A reality of modern life though is that our kids are going to have to be test takers (ACT, SAT - even to become a soccer ref or for a driver's license.) About 7th or 8th grade I do start giving some standardized tests and talk about test taking strategies. I think it is just another skill that we are teaching them - but unlike the institutional schools it does not have to be our primary focus! 
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Barb.b
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Elena wrote:
| A reality of modern life though is that our kids are going to have to be test takers (ACT, SAT - even to become a soccer ref or for a driver's license.) About 7th or 8th grade I do start giving some standardized tests and talk about test taking strategies. I think it is just another skill that we are teaching them - but unlike the institutional schools it does not have to be our primary focus! |
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Agreed. As my ds gets closer to college, I realized he needs to be prepared to take tests. I have tried to give him different type of tests over the years so he learns that studying for an essay test is different then studying for multiple choice. In fact, he was supprised to discover that multiple choice tests were more difficult then he thought! The reality is that if college is the goal: our kids need to know how to learn the material to remember it for the type of tests they will encounter. Also, this gives practice in time management (ds has a syllabus of the test dates) and he needs to be ready by then (ready of not). It additionaly gives practice in a test situation (paper and pencil, you get one shot testing). I may sound harsh, but remember my ds is in 12th grade, going to University of Oklahoma next year and probably going into engineering!
Barb
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vmalott
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Barb.b wrote:
| studying for an essay test is different then studying for multiple choice. <snip> The reality is that if college is the goal: our kids need to know how to learn the material to remember it for the type of tests they will encounter. |
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I agree with you here, Barb, and this is what I mean by "playing the game." I think it is a skill that becomes more valuable for college "survival". You learn what the instructor wants to hear (read?) and how to present it well. This is more for those subjective classes that use essay tests for evaluation. Usually there's no room for too much original thought and/or opinion. Most professors (in my experience) like to hear their own ideas spewed back at them. 
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Valerie
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Barb.b
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| Posted: Oct 16 2010 at 7:27am | IP Logged
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Valerie, Yes, I was talking to a friend about this. We were remembering how it is a skill to know what each professor wants. So, at times I have gotten the test packet/bank from the text book we were using. And like it or not that is what we used. Ds hopefully got a little skill is trying to figure out what each wanted.
Barb
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: note taking/narrations instead of tests
