Time for Action: Stop Teaching to the Test and Start Teaching Skills [Hardcover]

This book should be read by anyone concerned about the future of education in the United States. It was written for students, parents, educators, administrators, and policy makers because it will require effort from all these individuals to create meaningful change in the education system. This book discusses why the education system needs to change now, and provides practical examples of teaching approaches, school models, and assessment systems that can move the education system forward in the right direction. Students deserve an education that teaches them how to solve challenging problems and inspires them to become life long learners. Read this book and then go out and implement these ideas.Scott Wurdinger is a professor of experiential education and leadership studies at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota. He has taught all age students in traditional and nontraditional settings and has been teaching in higher education for the past twenty-two years. He serves as a cadre expert for Innovative Quality Schools and is a board member for EdVisions, Inc., which is an organization that replicates project-based charter schools around the country.

Wurdinger (Minnesota State Univ.) offers an accessible, commonsense alternative to teaching to the test. His central tenet is simple: students learn the most and at the highest level when they are actively engaged in their own learning. Wurdinger offers an entire chapter on preparing teachers to use hands-on, skills-focused learning through projects, activities, and field experiences. While his arguments are hardly new, Wurdinger offers readers a refreshing antidote to the sterile, creativity-starved 'education reform' texts now on the market. Wurdinger believes that assessment of students should be based on their demonstration of what they have learned, and by demonstrate he does not mean through narrow, paper-and-pencil tests that tend to fixate on the memorization of disconnected and decontextualized factlđ