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Anonymous.
Rob_Hugo@PortNWHi,
I was looking at the “released questions” on the California Standards Test (CST) for 10th grade World History. It is available on the Department of Education’s webpage.
Here are the questions are about East Asia
(They were originally multiple choice)
+ Economically, what enabled Japan to become a colonial power after 1894?
+ From the Constitution of Japan:
We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land
Which of these is a source for the ideas outlined in the Japanese constitution?
+ In 1900, anti-foreign sentiment in China led to an uprising known as the_______
+ The collapse of the last Chinese Empire in 1912 was caused by the imperial government’s
failure to _______
AnonymousI'm not familiar with the history curriculum but does Asia get enough coverage or is it just a small part? Are these questions enough for the CST?
AnonymousHi,
I don't know how many questions there are on the CST but I think its probably somewhere between 50 to 75.
I posted those questions to show what percentage of questions are about Asia and which particular topics the California Standards Test (CST) thinks 10th grade students should know.
AnonymousI hate the feeling not being able to answer this question since I only taught 7th grade this year. Every year I had an 8th grade homeroom for testing, and if one person was absent, I can't say I didn't peek at the test questions. But this year, since I had the 7th graders, I was dying to know what type of questions too. In our school, we did both portions of the social studies testing on one day. This is probably a bad idea if they ever add an essay portion to this test, similar to SATs.
In relation to the assessments that science teachers did all year throughout the district, I wonder if that helped to raise science scores above and beyond what was expected???... I know that the possibility for social studies going in the same direction has been delayed...
I took home this summer the copy of the new 7th grade social studies textbook. I think for many new or inexperience teachers, it does offer a better guide to stay aligned with the curriculum standards and frameworks. This alone should raise some weak areas in thet district if proper introductions were given to the new text for the teachers... I did feel however "cheapened" when some said the McDougal_Littel books were picked for the fringed benefits, such as a promised laptop/projector for every teacher with a full day class set... "And you can also win this imperial tea set, or this German clock if you instead purchase 'All History, All Anime, All day'!!!!"...
AnonymousSince on most maps Europe and Asia seem to share the same land mass, students mighf get a little confused as to which countries are part of Europe and which countries are part of Asia. Also, are all people from that part of the world considered Asians, even ones from the Phiippines? Teachers need to be sure that students understand which is which?
AnonymousThis year, on the district mandated Language Arts assessment on Exposition, the students were asked to compare and contrast the educatin of students in Japan with the education of students in America after reading an informative selection on the same subject. The students were to first fill out a comparison-contrast chart using the information from the selection. Then they were asked to make several logical assertions about the selection, to back these assertions up with citations from the selection and to explain why and how these citations supported their assertions. I was very pleased that this aricle was chosen. The students were able to see that their compaints about too much schoolwork are unwarranted when they considered the demands placed on Japanese students. More importantly, they got a chance to peer into the Japanese cullture in an area that they could somewhat identify with.
Since these assessments are designed to drive instruction, we were able to discuss Japan in more detail after the tests were scanned into the district offices and individual scores were received.
I only wish the district would include more factual and interesting selections such as this in its mandated assessments.