#17 Testing in Schools. Does it work? | Michael Lawrence |

Michael Lawrence is an Australian school teacher with more than 30 years of experience. When he visited Finland to take a look at their world-leading education system, he came away in a state of shock. "Finnish teachers looked at me like I was insane when I described the NAPLAN tests (National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy) given to children as young as eight. With shocked expressions, they asked why Australian teachers allowed this to be done to such young children..." Michael felt that there was no reasonable answer to this. His investigation into what made the Finnish system so successful quickly became an inquiry into why his own (Australian) system wasn't working. The next few years would see more time in Finland interacting with Finnish educators at all levels. Michael's research went deep. He held multiple formal and informal interviews and worked alongside Tampere University and Tampere University of Applied Sciences to bring training to Australian teachers. A happy outcome of his profound interest in Finland also led to his book entitled Testing 3-2-1: What Australian education Can Learn from Finland: A Teacher's Perspective. The book tells the story of how Australian education fell behind the world’s best and why Finland came to lead. It's also a guide to how some of Finland’s ideas can be used by teachers and schools to begin to reverse this. In today’s interesting free-flowing discussion, Melissa and Michael discuss: Testing in Australian schools and how Finland compares Creativity in schools and whether we can rank/grade it How teachers can be 'rebels' in their own classrooms Top tips for enhancing teaching and learning with a 'touch of Finland' in your own classroom To contact Michael or buy his book please click here. To read about NAPLAN testing in Australia see here. To connect with Michael on LinkedIn see here. This podcast is brought to you by EDUTEN. Finland's #1 Digital Math Learning Platform. Sign up HERE for a free 4-week trial and your students will never look back! Please follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.