For Teachers

Did you know that at the frontier of everyone's knowledge is where we make the most mistakes? Makes sense doesn't it? This is where we know the least and can learn the most rapidly, if we get past our fear of being wrong.

When professional test makers create their test items, they try to anticipate the kinds of mistakes students might make in order to get them to produce wrong answers. These answers reveal the students' frontiers of knowledge. Makes sense doesn't it?

What teachers need to know is the nature of the mistakes their students are making in order to help them to be willing to try to learn and to help them over the roadblocks they are encountering. Once our students realize that they are not stupid, merely stuck and that they are actively learning, they get very excited and start to make rapid gains. Makes sense doesn't it?

Then why do we score tests right/wrong, removing this essential information about where they are stuck that is found among the wrong answers? This way of scoring tests removes all of the important information that these answers can give us. As a result, we have no idea where our students are stuck or why they are stuck from the test results. This doesn't make any sense at all, does it?

If you answered “yes” this website is for you.