The Challenges Of High Stakes Testing In Shakespeare

There are multiple challenges in teaching on a day to day basis, these include scheduling issues, behavioral management and maintaining a positive rapport with students throughout the year. Furthermore, high stakes testing, text selection and engaging students with learning needs are all relevant to how we plan and apply lessons. Each specific discipline will have their own challenges and ways to overcome these and English is the same. One challenge is maintaining the relevance of Shakespeare to the 21st century learner, the second is teaching EAL students, specifically, how we can teach language as a transferrable skill to assist students in further understanding Shakespeare when studied in class. Both of these ideas can be linked to the
As a Teacher and school there are guidelines set upon us by governing bodies, both national and stated curriculums and individual school policy. In regards to high stakes testing this is not necessarily a challenge that schools can overcome at the VCE level, considering these tests are mandated by the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority (VCAA). While at a year 11 level, assessment is freely chosen by the school and teacher, the year 12 assessments are more restricted. But how does high stakes testing and policy impact on student learning and assessment and why is high stakes testing set? Madaus, Russel and Higgins maintain that Policy makers are a key reason high stakes testing has this level of importance when they say “policy-makers realize they cannot directly regulate instruction in classrooms. But, they can indirectly influence instruction by attaching rewards or sanctions to mandated tests. Policy makers have always been aware that a high-stakes test forces teachers to adjust instruction to prepare students for the test” (Madaus, 2009). Further from this they suggest that there are three main consequences to high stakes testing these being; “teachers give greater attention to tested content and decrease emphasis on non-tested content. This narrows the content and skills taught and learned within a discipline, Second, a high-stakes test preempts time and coverage from disciplines not tested. [narrowing curriculum fields]. Third, there is a “trickle down” effect. The content and skills covered on the high-stakes tests at the upper grades displaces the content and skills of non-tested lower grades, altering the curriculum across grades” (Madaus,2009). Simply, there is risk that teachers and as a result students become heavily focused on select subject areas, potential disadvantaging them in later years of further education or life. Not all