(PRWEB) August 29, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Educational Testing, It’s not standardized anymore.
Los Alamitos, CA — August 21, 2001 — /Xpress Press/ — What if every teacher in every school in the world were able to start the school year by applying an adaptive diagnostic process against each of their students, producing an individual schematic showing exactly what that student did not know?
Imagine a class of students being taught what they need to learn, rather than a teacher teaching the subject and hoping that a majority of the students have the base skills required to keep up with the lesson. If something were available that did this, imagine how it would improve the way we educate our children today.
Announcing CADETS(tm) from EduCAD(tm). The CADETS(tm) program is a Computer Adaptive Diagnostic Educational Testing System that leverages patent pending technology to allow any student to have a schematic diagram of what they don’t know in a particular knowledge area mapped out. Utilizing a hierarchically structured taxonomy for a specific knowledge area the testing system creates probes (questions and answers that are possible to generate from the given diagnostic questions assuming common student errors) and presents them to the students. The student’s answers to these probes, using the adaptive technology, generate further probes that determine what the student doesn’t know in that knowledge area. The end result of the testing is a topographical schematic of that student’s area of weakness.
Today the CADETS(tm) system is a filed patent and a demonstration system with limited capability. A year ago it was an idea that was being written into a patent by EduCADs two founders. A year from now it will be a product that will open up the educational system to massive change. Teachers will be able to start their classes knowing what their students don’t know. Teachers will be able to map lesson plans to match the strengths and weaknesses of their students. Teachers will be able to know how to group students into learning teams so that working together those students that understand the concepts can help those students that don’t.
Today, educational testing does not always function as intended (see the NY Times article on NCS Pearson; 5/20/2001; Right Answer, Wrong Score: Test Flaws Take Toll – By Diana B. Henriques and Jacques Steinberg). It is argued that some tests are biased geographically or demographically and in fact encourage schools to teach to the test. CADETS(tm) is the first system that seeks to find out what a student doesn’t know and provides a topography across a specific field of knowledge clearly showing what concepts the student doesn’t understand, so that the student can be taught what they need to succeed not what they need to pass a standardized test.
The goal of EduCAD(tm) is to develop the CADETS(tm) system on a number of different application platforms so that it can be used by public and private schools as well as non-traditional education opportunities like home schooling. CADETS(tm) first knowledge base release will be Math grades 2-8.
EduCAD(tm) is on track to release the initial operational CADETS(tm) platform on both an Internet and ASP platform in the early part of 2003. Prior to that EduCAD(tm) will be operating limited access versions of the application at a number of beta test locations.
CONTACT: JM Ivler [email protected]
714-746-9090 (cell)
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