Posts from — October 2008

With all this focus on No Child Left Behind and the ensuing testing culture that’s been created I wonder how many people have noticed that the predominate methodology used in schools has gone from Drill and Practice to Drill and Test.

Drill and Practice is an instructional strategy developed and used for much of the history of schools and schooling. Many people feel the practice is out of date and not appropriate for meaningful learning to take place. On the other side of the argument, people that still support the idea of drill and practice as an effective teaching methodology suggest that repetition is necessary for the brain to ‘wire’ itself appropriately.

From a web site on instructional strategies:

As an instructional strategy, drill & practice is familiar to all educators… Drill-and-practice, like memorization, involves repetition of specific skills, such as addition and subtraction, or spelling. To be meaningful to learners, the skills built through drill-and-practice should become the building blocks for more meaningful learning.
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/drill/index.html

From another web site:

Development of basic knowledge and skills to the necessary levels of automatic and errorless performance requires a great deal of drill and practice. . . . drill and practice activities should not be slighted as “low level.” Carried out properly, they appear to be just as essential to complex and creative intellectual performance as they are to the performance of a virtuoso violinist.
http://www.audiblox2000.com/repetition.htm

I believe the accelerating focus on testing has shifted teaching methodologies to be more akin to drill and test. Tests are taking up more time and focus in the school setting. Many people have complained that teachers are teaching to the test at the cost of learning.

So the old method of drill and practice is giving way to the new method of drill and test. Learning suffers as a consequence.

From a Carnegie Mellon article:

A recurring criticism of tests used in high-stakes decision making is that they distort instruction and force teachers to “teach to the test.” The criticism is not without merit. The public pressure on students, teachers, principals, and school superintendents to raise scores on high-stakes tests is tremendous, and the temptation to tailor and restrict instruction to only that which will be tested is almost irresistible.

further it says:

There is a lesson here for teachers and assessment specialists alike. The tension between the instructional and assessment communities, as well the pejorative connotations that “teaching to the test” entails, will continue unabated so long as testing and assessment are seen as something quite apart from instruction and learning, rather than an integrated reflection of what was intentionally taught. To paraphrase A. G. Rud of Purdue University, what is needed is a deliberate attempt on the part of all parties to link curriculum, instruction, assessment, and standards in a more generative and even transparent way.

Disclaimer: I’m not advocating for either of these methodologies. In fact, I don’t recommend either methodology as being the right thing to do in today’s environment. The purpose of pointing out what I think is happening is to support people to make conscious choices – to know what they are doing and why.

In today’s world I recommend a whole person and brain based approach to learning – with the focus on learning NOT on teaching. Drill and practice is a good method for memorization but as I’ve said in another post memorizing is not the same as learning.