The pandemic, addiction of social media and assessments

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The unhealthy use of social media has already created serious damage to society for a decade from now. After the ban of TikTok, the pandemic has also elevated the use of similar social media like Instagram. Kids and teens now spend even more time in gaming and social media to pass their time as there are no schools or no exams. Exams used to create some incentives to sit at the study table. It's not surprising that kids start opening books when there are exams. 


Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now


But, exams are heavily criticized by educators as it serves to kill and drill methodology of learning. It also impacts the well-being of students and fails to produce kids with critical thinking. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test

Already we have entrance exam policies that are based on the teaching to test way of learning. 



Exams are ok, as long as they are well-designed and are of low or no stakes. We should replace exams with the broader term called assessments.

Exams can be just some questions and the answer is already memorized deterministic script or steps, and then you are scored by the reproducibility quality of memorization or steps that you have committed to memory by repetitive drill exercises. 

Drill exercises are beneficial, as they help us to memorize facts. Trouble arises when we use only one kind of assessment, drill exercise is not well-designed, and we fall into trap of raising the test scores of pointless tests.

Tests also centralize the curriculum, so teaching about the negative impacts of social media is almost impossible.

Assessments are not tests or exams, it can take any form such as using the Feynman technique or designing probing questions to explain the chapter. 

Assessments can be done daily or weekly without creating a negative impact. Remember its assessment for learning, not the assessment of learning.


How learning Happens. Kirschner and Hendrick



So, this pandemic, make your children learn and help them spend more time on personal development rather than using social media by teaching them about the negative impacts of social media. If they can notice how social media is impacting them, they are likely to quit it.  Making them notice is to make them learn the right content with the right learning strategies. 


Let me be clear: social media isn’t and can’t ever be a substitute for our real-life relationships, real-life conversations, and real-life experiences. Living a virtual life isn’t equal to living an actual life.

Logged In and Stressed Out - Paula Durlofsky

 

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