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I use this metaphor all the time to describe assessment! (It's actually perfect for many problem-solving tactics we resort to in life-human nature to want to solve quickly if inn efficiently?)

Of course, we should have recognized by now that it's actually taking us A LOT longer to get at what matters this way. (BTW, the version of the story/joke I've heard has it as a drunk person outside a bar...hmmm).

Sarah



On Mar 22, 2013, at 7:28 AM, Stephen Uzzo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Thanks Eric -
> I liken standardized tests to the little story of the person who dropped their keys in a parking lot at night in one spot, but only looks in a different spot because that is where the streetlight is. In other words, it is impossible to assess learning in any but the most hopelessly inadequate and inaccurate way, by shining little flashlights on little bits of learning from a single point of view, but not on all of learning from all points of view.. I have no problem with testing, but we act like its the only tool in the shed, and then we go on to use it do everything. We make a single numerical judgement about one of the most complex things in the universe, the human brain. 
> 
> The dirty little secret is that high stakes tests are used not  because they can provide a way to assess and compare learning, but because they are cheap and test makers/graders can be lazy and/or machine automate grading so they don't have to work hard. Really assessing learning is very hard to do (I do authentic assessment with my grad students and its A LOT of work), and I'm not even sure if we understand it enough to know what we are doing. The Law of Requisite Variety succinctly states that you cannot understand a system that is more complex than your knowledge of it. Complex measures are needed to assess a complex thing, and it is irreducible to a numerical score. We've been looking for our keys in all the wrong places. I don't fault PISA, SAT, ACT, Regents or any other tests, it is their misuse as high stakes determinants for how we classify people in society that is the problem. It is tantamount to a caste system. Do I sound like Ivan Illich yet? If not, then let me propose that we put a moratorium on high stakes testing and put the money we now spend on it into a new kind of neurocognitive learning research. Once we have achieved a deep and complete understanding of what learning is, then we might be qualified to devise metrics and assessments to test it. I would venture to guess that it would not look very much like the tests we currently administer. 
> 
> Stephen Miles Uzzo, PhD.
> VP, Science & Technology
> New York Hall of Science
> 47-01 111th Street

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