High Stakes Testing Strategies for the Year
For many the holiday season heralds the advent of High Stakes Testing, a nerve wracking time for teachers and students. For those who return from Winter Break to a week of testing, please know that by the time you close classes for the holiday, you and your students have done all of the preparation that you can for “The Test.” You might want to provide a little “stretching” exercise when they return just to make sure “atrophy” has not set in over the holidays; but you aren’t going to teach them anything at that point that they haven’t already learned. Here are just a few tips for all of us as we begin to think about High Stakes Testing.
Beginning Day 1 in the Fall and Continuing Throughout the Year
(planning
next year)
Assessment items that resemble the test should be given as a part
of your regular unit evaluations. As you are designing the unit tests, be
certainly that items are included that are to the rigor of and are in the
format of your High Stakes Test. Parents (and often justifiably so) complain
of the teachers “teaching the test.” Now with No Child Left Behind, teachers had better be “teaching the test,” because the test is to reflect the State Standards. Test masters and software certainly have their place in the review of concepts, but should be a part of a balanced curriculum and used only as students have mastered the concepts so that you can concentrate on the rigor and format. Generating your own questions to nestle inside your unit tests helps students to encounter the rigor and format in places other than the test-prep materials, making the assessment a natural part of your curriculum. If you are using prep software and/or print materials, target the objectives that you are teaching so that students are working to reinforce skills as well as problem-solving strategies within your curriculum timeline expectations.
A Month before the Test
If you have provided plenty of reinforcement throughout the year via items
in your normal curriculum, your students have a thorough grasp of what the
test will look like; and they have experienced the rigor of the exam in a
natural environment. There are still those “types” of items, however, that many students have problems solving. Use your testing materials wisely during this month. Pretest students to find the gaps, then individualize to teach the students those skills they still lack. Whole-sale blanketing of the entire class with the same skill lesson is not an effective use of the materials. Group students to master the testing objectives. Remember, with NCLB the objectives being tested are the knowledges and skills that your State expects your students to leave you having mastered this year. This is not “teaching the test;” it is teaching the state expectations. That’s our job as teachers. It means that you need to constantly reevaluate where each student is in the process. There are software programs that can help you make this easier. Check out www.lmmath.com for one example.
The Week before the Test
Time for “Intense Math.” Take ONLY those students who are still having difficulty and for 2 days work only math and only in their problem areas. Find a room where students can be comfortable (if you are using software, the computer lab is perfect). Include food and soft music in the room to make the environment friendly. Mix printed materials and software that is designed to teach strategies for the test as well as the concepts being tested. Teachers from all over the campus can float in during their conference periods to help students. Award with smiles, high-fives, pats on the back. Successes and positive attitudes promote a positive feeling toward the test for both students and teachers. These days tell students that we’re all in this together, that the staff believes in the students and their abilities. This is a VERY powerful tool when students begin to believe in themselves.
The Day Before the Test
Do NOTHING that refers to the test no software, no worksheets, no teacher-generated materials that resemble the testing instrument. This day should be filled with challenging open-ended activities where students channel their creativity and garner higher level thinking skills. Keep it low key emotionally, but high intensity cognitively, crossing curriculum areas such as art, music, PE. The payoff is that students are engaged in the type of thinking that they will need to do their best on the test, without the stress of testing materials.
TEACHERS
This is very stressful on you. You have taught till your brains are
numb, yet are still worried that students won’t show on the test what they actually know. Help one another with positive action. During team meetings talk about what is going “right” in your class, and meet the challenges of difficult situations impersonally with “What can we do differently to help solve this problem?” Try the soft music in your lounge music really does “soothe the savage beast,” which in this case is test anxiety for teachers. Look for positive behaviors in your classroom and in your peers and give a little sticker note of praise giving deserved praise helps the recipient AND the giver! Cut down on your sugar and caffeine (although I have read that a little chocolate helps to calm us down). Think positively, breath deeply, praise freely, smile. Have you ever had a snowball fight? Sounds silly, but it does actually work. Get a group of teachers together with yesterday’s newspaper. Stand in two opposing teams facing one another, each Team having half of the newspaper. On a signal, the teams simply wade up small pieces of newspaper to make fist size “snowballs.” Chunk them at one another until the time keeper calls time. You’d be surprised how much tension can be relieved by being a kid again! You are excellent educators and your hard work will show!
Keep Smiling! And have a wonderful and well deserved Winter Break!
