{"id":9783,"date":"2024-03-26T20:08:55","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T00:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/progresslearning.com\/?p=9783"},"modified":"2024-03-26T20:08:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T00:08:56","slug":"educators-journey-changing-test-prep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/progresslearning.com\/news-blog\/educators-journey-changing-test-prep\/","title":{"rendered":"One Educator\u2019s Journey to Changing What Test Preparation Looks Like"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ariel Speck<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many of us educators, there is a similar pattern happening around this time of year: classroom instruction as we know it changes from Tier 1 instruction, riotous classroom discussions, math problems that take all class to collaboratively solve to test prep. For most of this blog contributor\u2019s teaching career, test prep season meant silent rooms drilling released test questions I found online, rounds of quick grading multiple-choice options, and reviewing incorrect answers. It meant on-demand essays (often for the first time that entire year!) and lightning-quick rubric grading, meant to imitate the graders of the actual test, who, rumor had it, only had eleven minutes<\/em> to score each piece of student writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Test prep season was miserable for all of us. But, I thought, it was necessary. So much weight is put on these tests for the students, the school, and my career, and we could not risk failure. One year, after a particularly grueling week of test prep with my tenth graders, as we were leaving the class, one boy came up to me looking exhausted. \u201cWhen is the actual test again?\u201d he asked. I let him know it was only a week away. \u201cThank goodness,\u201d he said, rubbing his face. \u201cThen we never have to do this again until next year.\u201d He wasn\u2019t stressing about the test, his future, or what our school score would be in the fall. He just wanted the endless test preparation skill drilling to end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was exhausted by test preparation each year: it took hours to find resources, ensure they were up to date with the latest research and changes to the tests, and give them and grade them. I was doing lightning-fast data analysis that required a ton of extra hours. But I didn\u2019t realize something needed to change until I asked myself: if my students got to the test and they were already<\/em> exhausted, was I helping or hurting their chances of success? I prided myself on creating a social-emotional learning (SEL) focused classroom for 90% of the school year. Why did it suddenly not matter during testing season? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to change my approach to testing preparation in the hopes that it would help students feel calmer, better, and more prepared for the test. I knew test preparation the way I had been doing it was not sustainable for my students or myself, and I needed to make big changes before the next season. Here\u2019s what I did:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating a Growth Mindset Culture<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As an educator, I realized that stopping instruction completely to skill drill for an extended period of time before the test was not actually helping my students. I looked at my data from the very first practice test to the very last one before standardized testing. I would usually \u201cprep\u201d students for 2-3 weeks, and I realized, to my horror, there wasn\u2019t a lot of growth. All of this stress and anxiety for what amounted to 3-5% growth \u2014\u00a0a statistically negligible growth rate. The answer felt simple: increase the amount of time students got in front of testing. However, my students were already tested a ton. We had tests that determined academic interventions like NWEA MAP, practice ACT\u00ae<\/sup>, and curriculum-based assessments. I didn\u2019t want to make students sit through more <\/em>tests, fatiguing them further.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Instead, I looked to where test prep already fit into my current offerings. Where in my Tier 1 curriculum were students asked to answer multiple-choice or short-answer questions independently? How was I asking them to track their growth and data? I created a very simple tracker for students to look at their growth over time and set SMART goals<\/a>. Often, it was as simple as one or two questions that I chose that would help students get really precise with their understanding of their own knowledge.
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Goal Setting and Progress Monitoring<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I know that I am more motivated to complete a challenging task when I set my own goals. Having someone say, \u201cYou can run a marathon if you really try!\u201d is very different than me saying, \u201cI am going to run a marathon by June 26 of next year, and here is my training plan I am going to stick to.\u201d Once I had easy-to-track student data in hand, I was able to help them set their own measurable and attainable goals<\/a>. Suddenly, we weren\u2019t just preparing for the big end-of-year test that felt really far away and insurmountable, we were focusing on achieving a more bite-sized goal with tangible results that students could check themselves against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


For example, I had a student who struggled routinely with analysis of text. He could select strong text evidence but not explain it in his own words. I gave him a litany of supports, some that he used, and some that he didn\u2019t. After tracking his data for a few weeks, he identified it himself<\/em> as his biggest growth area. We discussed ways he felt successful and ways he had not. He set a goal of using a sentence frame to remind himself to dig deeper into the meaning of the quote 100% of the time in his writing and write 80% of the time before multiple-choice questions. He was inspired to do this work himself and saw huge <\/em>results!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Not All About Released Test Items<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At last check, I have over 1,000 individual released test items from the three different states I have taught in. I used to love<\/em> released test items, and in some cases, I still do! They provide quick results, great practice, and they\u2019re relatively easy to find. However, these released test items generally do not provide an accurate picture of students\u2019 knowledge or ability, and increasingly, they don\u2019t represent the format of the test students are seeing. Practice makes permanent, not perfect. I realized that by only doing multiple-choice questions from, in some cases, really old tests, <\/em>I was teaching my students the art of sitting quietly and filling in a bubble sheet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To ensure students are fully prepared for tests, we need to put the new question types students will see in front of them: standards-aligned, tech-enhanced, and increasingly computer adaptive. I would try to find examples by attending free seminars from the state on testing, but I was always working hard and a step behind the test. Partnering with providers like Progress Learning was critical to me because they took the work out of finding or making high-quality items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Build Resiliency, Start Supporting Students Early<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If the first time we are talking about social and emotional learning in an academic setting is just around testing, we\u2019re starting too late. Fostering social and emotional learning (SEL) in an academic setting<\/a> is critical to preparing students to do well in all aspects of their life, including their time in the classroom and beyond it. Managing emotions and feelings translates from the classroom to the testing center to beyond, and has been shown to have a significant positive impact<\/a> on our students\u2019 academic outcomes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to look at test prep as something to stop the classroom for. It was stressful for both myself and my students, highly disruptive, and not that effective. By using research-based best practices for classroom structure and social-emotional learning, I was able to make changes that significantly impacted student outcomes. With these steps, we can make test prep more effective and less disruptive:<\/p>\n\n\n\n