Category Archives: Test prep

The standards, the skills, the tests: An eye opening revelation

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not believe in “teaching to the test”.

Certainly, I make sure to the best of my ability that I prepare my students for the standardized tests they take–PSATs, SATs, AP, and our diocesan test, Performance Series, and for Philadelphia School partnership, the Terra Nova.

I believe in demystifying these tests through taking and deconstructing practice tests, and I believe in helping kids learn to de-stress about these kinds of tests since they are just part of the life of a student.

There is often too much at stake–for the student and the school–to take a hands off approach to these tests.

What is interesting, however, is that a series of separate situations has led me to discovering something quite amazing. In my school, we are working to increase our students’ literacy, and one of the metrics we are using is the PSAT and SAT scores. Furthermore, since we adopted this online resource years ago, we are trying to find ways to encourage teachers to use Newsela more.  Additionally, the archdiocesan schools have been working with Learning Science in discovering how digging through our standards and creating scales can improve rigor and, ultimately, achievement.

Since we use the CCSS ELA standards, finding evidence that Newsela would help us increase achievement in the Reading area is easy, because in addition to offering the ability to assign students the same content at their separate and appropriate reading level, Newsela has quizzes available for most of its articles that are geared toward the eight Anchor standards.  And diving further into ELA reading, Newsela supports Reading in both Informational Text and Literature. AND it supports the literacy reading standards for Social Studies and Science and Technical Subjects.  So that is pretty amazing.

But what really amazed me is how the SAT aligns with the Common Core.

I have been trying to find a list of skills that are tested in the SAT so that I could help my students drill down on their areas of weaknesses.  In recent workshops, I have asked multiple people for crosswalks with CCSS and our standardized tests. I did not get any easy answers. I started going through a SAT prep book trying to identify the skills.  I  had my students begin to fill in a Google Form with the skills their PSAT report indicated they need to improve.

I googled various combinations of “SAT” and “PSAT” and “CCSS” and have hit interesting documents that talk about the percentage of content from the CCSS that is addressed in the SATs.  And I even found a great resource that shows the alignment of CCSS and AP courses.  

But I could not find a list of the skills addressed on the SAT–until last week when my principal emailed the faculty some resources, and there were the skills identified as SAT Reading Domain (pp. 17-18) and SAT Writing and Language Domain (pp. 29-30) smack dab in the middle of a PDF file of The Redesigned SAT Teacher Implementation Guide from the College Board.  Math is there, too!

I had been gridding the skills from Newsela and CCSS ELA literacy, Social Studies, and Science and Technical Subjects to find commonalities, but when I started to add a column with the SAT reading skills, I was shocked.  

Each part of the reading domain aligns with the CCSS.  Here is my chart.  I am working on the Writing correlation, but it does not fit as neatly.

My conclusion? Teaching the literacy standards from both the ELA Reading, Social Studies, and Science and Technical Subjects is EXACTLY what the students will need to know for the Reading part of SAT.  And using Newsela across the content areas will support that.

 

Laughter is the test medicine

Some of most favorite memories as a student and as a teacher are the ones where the entire class was laughing.

There is nothing like a good, wholesome, belly aching laugh to make you feel fabulous.  I am sure there is research on the release of endorpIMG_1569hins, but I know that a good  me to the soul, and it helps me relax.

I am not really sure why I began the practice of fostering fun and games in the last days preparing my AP English students for their intense exams.  But I have been doing it for a while now, and I love watching the kids enter the testing room laughing, happy, and most importantly, relaxed.

Perhaps AP kids tend to be uptight.  Perhaps some people think an AP class is supposed to be uptight.  I don’t like to teach in uptight situations, and I did not like being a student in those kinds of classes.

My students have an extremely rigorous program of study to prepare them for the AP English Language and Composition test.  They need to be able to write–extremely well–on timed and intense prompts, and they need to be able to read and analyze–extremely well–dense and difficult pieces of prose. And ironically, they even need to be able to analyze the effect of humor as an argument.

IMG_1568We work hard.  But all through the year, we do laugh.  And when the pressure gets greater, we laugh harder.

A few weeks before the test, I give them song sheets to lyrics to a re-written “I Will Survive” disco song.  We sing, and I usually coerce my colleague to come in and do a few disco spins with me.  Then the real fun begins.

IMG_1584I am generally not a big extra credit kind of teacher.  But in the fourth quarter I offer my students the opportunity to create an extra-credit morale-boosting music video, where they change the lyrics to a song to get the class hyped up and psyched up.

The videos are hilarious.  Somehow they rhyme words like “dialectical journal” and “50 Essays” and even find a way to work in Szymborski.  We watch all the videos, from the first one, “AP Pokerface,” to the new ones, a few every day.

It is so nice to see them leave class each day laughing and smiling and happy and relaxed.

I make a big deal a few days before the exam about the secret homework that they will be assigned the night before the exam.  In the past years, I have even listed it on GradeConnect to make sure parents know their child is not making it up. Their homework consists of doing something fun–going to the movies, playing a basketball game, getting a manicure–and not looking at any test prep materials. We talk about the importance of a good night’s sleep.  We talk about nutrition and the importance of a eating protein rich breakfast to stabilize blood sugar.

IMG_1562The day of the exam, I ask them to report to me a half hour before they are due to report to the testing room.  I blast a playlist, they write last minute worries on post-it notes and place them anywhere in the room–even on the ceiling–for me to “hold” during their test, we take a class picture, and we sing “I’ll Get a Five” one last time.

Then we conga.  

Hands on the shoulders in front.  This year forty-three kids, right through the hallway five minutes before the bell for homeroom.  They conga right through the kids talking at their lockers, past teachers who have seen this year after year, into the back corridor, and into the testing room, entering with a high five from me.

I love seeing them smile.

In case you are thinking that this is all silly, let me explain.  You see I do not care what score each students gets.  As long as it is the BEST one he or she can get.  I look at this as a personal competition.  Whether a five or a two, if each student performs to the greatest level of excellence is capable of reaching, then the test is worthwhile and valid.

Life is hard enough without stress and anxiety about SAT and AP scores. Learning to relax and realize that ONE test does not define a person’s worth is a life lesson. Embracing the belief that learning is more important than any number is the most important lesson for my students.

And laughter is one way to learn that.IMG_1582.