ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO SOLVE REAL-LIFE PROBLEMS
Master Tran Van Toan, former head of the math group at Marie Curie High School (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City), compared the high school graduation exam of the 2006 General Education Program with the sample exam of the graduation exam according to the new program.
According to Master Toan, previously the exam was evaluated entirely by 4-choice multiple-choice tests according to 4 levels: recognition, comprehension, low application, and high application. The sample exam that the Ministry of Education and Training recently announced is structured in 3 multiple-choice formats, each format targets 3 levels of candidate capacity assessment including recognition, comprehension, and application.
Schools have made changes in teaching to help students following the 2018 General Education Program adapt to the innovation of high school graduation exams from 2025.
Most teachers affirmed that with the innovation through this illustrative exam, teaching and learning methods as well as testing and assessment methods in schools must certainly change in a timely manner. Mr. Tran Van Toan said that if in the past, the teaching perspective was to orient the content and level of knowledge to be achieved, now we must focus on developing the capacity of each student. This is concretized through ways to motivate students to solve problems that are posed in reality. At the same time, the testing and assessment methods must also change according to the structure of 3 multiple choice test formats to aim at assessing students' capacity.
Particularly for this year's 11th grade students, the former head of the math group at Marie Curie High School noted: "Students should focus on studying the content of definitions, theorems, properties and take notes on things that can lead to misunderstanding of a property or lead to errors in the results."
In addition, students need to know how to apply general knowledge to solve practical problems.
Similarly, Master Pham Le Thanh, Nguyen Hien High School (District 11, Ho Chi Minh City) said that many new forms of test construction require changes in teaching and learning. Students must have a firm grasp and deep understanding of basic knowledge to be able to solve questions. Students no longer focus on solving exercises and solving problems while neglecting basic theoretical knowledge of the subject because the actual test content is very broad. The development of questions and the form of test structure construction are also more diverse and differentiated.
"Teachers no longer teach by guessing questions or "guessing" questions, but must closely follow the requirements of the program to teach, develop the program, and build questions from the requirements of the program to test students. There are no longer unrealistic problems and exercises that do not measure students' abilities like before," Master Thanh emphasized.
FOCUS ON SKILLS INSTEAD OF MEMORY
Master Nguyen Viet Dang Du, head of the history group at Le Quy Don High School (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City), said that teachers need to be proactive in teaching. Textbooks are no longer the law, so teachers need to follow the required criteria for teaching content. Student assessment methods must also change towards assessing diverse competencies, not testing knowledge memorization skills.
Students should actively seek knowledge through many channels in addition to the knowledge provided by teachers in school. Being proactive in learning helps them improve their skills and apply knowledge.
Through the recent literature sample exam, it can be seen that the orientation of the high school graduation exam from 2025 clearly shows innovation, minimizing the practice of rote learning and learning from model texts. Therefore, Mr. Do Duc Anh, Bui Thi Xuan High School (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City), said that teachers need to help students understand and master literature knowledge according to the genre characteristics required by the program. Focus on closely following the requirements of each genre and type of exercise in the textbook. Train students in skills instead of cramming knowledge, demonstrating the ability to think analytically, critically, and creatively rather than memorizing.
From the illustrative structure of the test, teacher Duc Anh pointed out that the social argumentation part accounts for 40% of the test score, so students need to equip themselves with social knowledge by observing life, listening to current events, paying attention to issues of their own spiritual life and those around them, along with mastering the steps to write a social argumentation essay. Teachers need to increase practice exercises with texts outside the textbook for students to learn and recognize.
Teacher Tran Thi Hong Nhung, Asia International School (HCMC), said that the English graduation exam according to the new program has changed and is very different from previous years. It can be seen most clearly in the absence of dialogues, synonyms, antonyms, error correction, synonyms, sentence combinations and a reduction in the number of single multiple choice questions. Instead, there are many new ways of asking, especially the appearance of many short and more practical paragraphs. "To do well, students need to combine many skills, besides vocabulary and grammar, such as logical thinking and practical application," Ms. Nhung emphasized.
Teachers make timely changes to help students keep up with changes in exams.
According to Ms. Nhung, the English exam from 2025 will accurately assess students' real abilities, combining more skills, so teachers and students need to make adjustments in teaching, learning and reviewing right now.
Specifically, students need to be familiar with common text types in life and closely related to real life such as advertisements, announcements, letters, etc. To do well in the arrangement part, in addition to the vocabulary needed to understand, logical thinking skills are extremely important.
Illustrative questions do not make it difficult for students, but teaching must definitely change.
Ms. Pham Ha Thanh, a literature teacher at Le Quy Don High School - Ha Dong (Hanoi), commented: The format of the exam illustration that the Ministry has just announced for literature is very similar to the way the Hanoi National University of Education has created the competency assessment exam in the past 2 years. The biggest difference and also the biggest difficulty in the literature exam from 2025 is that it does not use any materials from textbooks. Therefore, teaching, testing and assessment at high schools must prepare students for and familiarize them with this.
According to Ms. Thanh, recently, the school's literature test also applied language materials not in the textbooks into the test and we have to admit that the reality is that students are having a hard time even though the school's input quality is top notch. This is understandable and sympathetic because students study and take exams according to the new program but have 9 years of studying the old program, and the assessment is in the old style.
Ms. Thanh also assessed that the illustrative questions limiting the number of words in the candidate's essay in each section, and stipulating the maximum number of materials listed in the questions (not exceeding 1,300 words) are necessary to suit the exam time, the students' level of comprehension and the presentation of the exam questions...
According to Ms. Thanh, teaching according to the new program has changed for a long time, but after having illustrative questions, it will certainly have to change more strongly. Instead of sticking to the works in the textbooks, teachers must teach by genre, carefully analyzing the characteristics of each genre so that when students approach a completely new text, they can know what genre it belongs to and from there can understand and express their own thoughts; not memorize and not depend on sample texts...
Studying the history exam illustration, Ms. Nguyen Thi Dien, Tran Quang Khai High School (Hung Yen), said that teachers should plan teaching in stages. First, teach basic knowledge; then, teach and review by topic to improve basic knowledge, exploit key lesson units in depth; conduct tests and assessments to improve teaching methods and approaches in the next stages.
Ms. Dien also said that it is necessary to change the way of making test questions closer to the sample questions.
Tue Nguyen
Source link
Comment (0)