In the upcoming weeks, however, teachers across the country will inflict another extended torture upon their kids: preparation for state standardized testing. In the days, weeks, or (yikes) months prior to the test, students will sit for hours taking practice tests, listening to the teachers go over the answers, copying down test-taking strategies, and trying to stay awake. No matter how “fun” we endeavor to make it, explicit test preparation does little more than raise students’ anxiety about the upcoming high-stakes test.
It’s natural for teachers and principals to be concerned about how students will perform on the state tests. After all, we know that if our students don’t do well, we’re going to be judged by those scores and that our schools and lives will be negatively impacted by them. I’ve talked to teachers in some buildings who fret because their principals are asking them what they’re doing to prepare for the test, and they are concerned that what they’re planning to do won’t be acceptable in the eyes of an outsider.
Here’s my bold assertion for the day: The best test preparation doesn’t look like test preparation to the students or to others visiting the classroom.
In an effective test preparatory scenario, you won’t see photocopies of released tests, students sitting and bubbling answers, and teachers talking about ways to outthink the test itself. Instead, you’ll see students engaged in the kind of thinking they’re expected to do on the test while they are doing the authentic work associated with the course’s content.
Research supports this assertion. In “Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well,” a pamphlet released by the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement, Dr. Judith A. Langer and a team of researchers investigated practices in 44 classrooms in 25 schools to determine the differences between typical programs and those with outstanding results. You can read their complete findings here: http://www.albany.edu/cela/publication/brochure/guidelines.pdf
One of the study’s findings explicitly addresses the issue of test preparation: “In schools that beat the odds, test preparation has been integrated into the class time, as part of the ongoing English language arts learning goals. In contrast, in the more typically performing schools, test prep is allocated to its own space in class time often before testing begins, apart from the rest of the year’s work and goals.”
In other words, teachers at high-performing schools are mindful of the objectives on the test and infuse them into instruction throughout the year. They seize the moments in the curriculum to reinforce the skills the students will need to demonstrate to pass the state test. Teachers in typical schools, on the other hand, overtly teach to the test.
So in an ideal world, you’ve been working all year mindfully preparing your students for the state tests as you teach your curriculum. But what if you haven't been? You only have a few weeks remaining. Do you suspend all instruction and snap into test-prep mode, or do you do something less blatant?
Here are a few strategies I suggest you use if you want to prepare your students for testing without halting everything and resorting to old-school test prep.
Use stems to create questions: Examine released tests or use published lists of test questions stems to write your own questions about material you are studying that mirror the types of questions asked on the test. Leave the questions open-ended instead of multiple choice, and allow the students to work with other students to find the answers. This will give them some experience with the types of questions they are likely to encounter on the test.
Let the students write the questions: The abovementioned article says that high-performing schools “identify connections to the standards and goals” that are tested. One way to do this is to provide the students with the standards tested and have them create questions of their own. Don’t waste your time asking them to create wrong multiple choice answers. Instead, have them pose open-ended questions and answer them. This activity is also probably best done in pairs or small groups because it will be challenging for some students to think this way. When they get used to thinking like a test maker, they ought to have better awareness about how to handle the kinds of questions they will see.
Write, think, talk: Learning occurs when students are actively engaged in the process. Going over a test in front of students generally involves the teacher doing the heavy lifting while the students sit back and absorb. Or at least we hope they do. In reality, they’re probably thinking about a million other things. Get them writing, thinking, and talking about the content of your course by asking higher-level questions patterned after the test and letting them wrestle with them on paper and then with one another. That’s when the learning happens.
Reassure the students: I tell my students that the test is using fake methods to test that they know how to do real things we do in class all the time. For instance, the Texas English I End-of-Course test asks the students to complete short-answer responses to literature in lined boxes. This is the fake way of testing that they can answer a question in a class discussion. In class, I ask a question. They raise their hand and answer. I ask them to go back to the literature to find proof for their answer, and after they give the proof, I ask them to explain how that proves their response. That’s exactly what the short answer question requires of them. In another section, they have to answer revision and editing questions about a student’s paper. That’s a fake way of testing whether they can successfully give feedback to a peer in a writing conference, something real we’ve done all year in class. If the students have been participating successfully in class and doing what they’re supposed to do, they're prepared to jump over all the ridiculous hurdles on the state test.
Make them justify their thinking: If you can’t stop yourself from digging out the released tests (and, please, try to do so if you can), at least don't make the students sit there and take the tests individually during class. I assure you that students don’t need to practice sitting and filling in an answer sheet for a boring test. Give the challenging questions to the students in groups and ask them to come up with answers together, explaining their reasoning to one another as they answer. Often, allowing students to tell one another what is going on in their heads as they deduce the correct answers causes all the students to learn how to figure out the types of questions the state throws at them.
Whatever you do to prepare your students for the test, the most important things are to reassure them that they are capable of succeeding because they have navigated appropriately rigorous curriculum and instruction throughout the year. Don’t turn test prep into a chore. Blend it with your regularly scheduled instruction, and don’t make your life and their lives miserable on account of one three- or four-hour experience. Pulling out the practice tests only makes them believe you are worried on their behalf, which will cause the most conscientious among them to worry, too. If you believe in the students and you help them believe in themselves, you’re steering them toward success.
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