New CDA Testing Policy Takes Over the Math Department
Going from paper to on a screen, new unit math testing strategies have caused an uproar among the math students of Northern High school. CDA stands for Common District Assessment, and is made by the people in charge of the schooling district, in Northern’s case it is DPS. The CDA is given to students on a computer and testing on a computer has already been known to be quite a struggle for some students which is why they changed the EOC’s to paper instead of online.
“When I take tests on the computer, I get the worst headache of my life,” junior Will Garrett said. “I have very sensitive eyes and the [blue lights] in the computers hurt them. So I usually rush through my tests so that I can be finished looking at the screen.”
The new testing strategy not only affects the students ability to focus on the test, it also causes problems among class test averages in all. Depending on what the teacher has gone over in the unit will affect what knowledge the students have on the topic. If a teacher chooses to move quickly over a certain section of the unit, the student might not absorb all of the information they need to make a sufficient grade on the test.
“Back in the beginning of the year when Mr. Anderson made our tests I was 100 percent confident that I was going to do well on the unit tests because I would know the information on the test,” freshman Cody Berberian said. “Now that I take the CDA I do not know the material and it stresses me out.”
With all that being said, the CDA in entirety has caused students math grades to drop. Students are expected to make an exceptional grade on a test made by someone who is not in the classroom while they are learning. Teacher made tests cover sections of the unit that have been covered entirely and that the students know. Although the students might not be comfortable with the methods they are taught at least they have been over it and have an idea of what to do.
“ I feel as if it is unfair to the students,” math teacher Angela Witherspoon said. “When we as teachers create these tests, we know exactly what we have taught the students in the class which allows us to make up questions according to what we have taught. Which in contrast to the CDA’s, they [do not] know what we have taught the students. The vocabulary they use differs from the vocabulary we use in the class, which causes students to see a word they are unfamiliar with and freak out.
Although the schooling district might feel as if this is a fair way to test the students of their county, the students feel as if they are being tested on information they do not know. The differing opinions on the new policy stresses out the students who are notorious for making good grades because they do not know how prepared they will be for testing.
“Honestly since we started taking the CDA my test grades have completely went downhill,” junior Destiny McPherson said.
However the CDA is not all negative, it allows teachers to communicate with one another and review topics they can move on from and ones they should probably spend more time on. It also is graded as soon as the student submits it online and saves teachers time and energy from having to sit and grade them individually.
“The CDA, although it has its flaws, is a great way for teachers to communicate on which topics we should spend more time on and which topics we can move on from,” math teacher Bruce Graham said. “The test is also automatically graded which gives other teachers and I to come up with lesson plans and not spend all our time grading each test individually.”
In conclusion the CDA has replaced teacher made testing, some believe it is for the better whereas others believe it needs to be rethinked it is apart of the testing system in the math class.