Test Prep: Are we asking the right questions?

If you look though my blog posts around critical thinking, you will note that I have maintained that getting kids to think strategically is all about asking the right questions.  Even better, teaching them the right questions to help them develop their own arguments and justifications and learn to make inferences, apply and adapt. 

Run a mile to train for a 50 m race

I just watched an interesting video from Grant Wiggins on “Real Test Preparation:  Better Teaching not Worse” which validated my practices. The bottom line in improving student performance is to ask better questions.  Better questions are harder questions.  Comparing preparing for a rigorous test to preparing for a specific event in a track meet, Wiggins points out that practices are often more rigorous than the actual race you will run.  He suggests preparation for high stakes testing should be the same. Schools that traditionally do better on state testing, “simply don’t worry about them” because their students are regularly taking tests that are harder than the state tests.  He suggests removing the multiple choices, hints and reminders from our tests.  We need to prepare students so that they can make inferences and think strategically rather than prepare them for a specific test format.

Looking at the data

Looking at specific test items that have been scored and shared, it becomes obvious that our students, despite knowing the content, lack the ability to apply and adapt.  A clear example of this comes from a test item on the Pythagorean theory which a majority of students, despite having the content, were unable to answer correctly.  The problem did not mention the word triangle or right angle; it showed a ladder leaning on a house.  Students had to make inferences, apply and adapt in order to answer the question. The majority could not.

There were also many examples of students not being able to make inferences in their reading.  They were unable to get the main idea of a reading passage or make inferences about the mood or character.  One example found that a majority of students mistakenly eliminated the choice “c. Essay” as the type of writing on an essay about color blindness because it was not 5 paragraphs!  Yikes. 

So how do we improve our teaching?

 Can we improve our teaching by improving our assessments?  Does increasing the rigor of student work help them improve by giving students the opportunity to face rigor more often?  I just saw this tweet from Esther Wojcicki @EsterWojcicki “Life is a series of projects, not a series of multiple choice tests.  We should train students for life.”  Providing projects that require students to apply, adapt, argue and justify is a great start.  Wiggins recommends that we give students new reading passages frequently and have them practice strategic thinking.  What was the author’s purpose?  Point of view?  Ask questions that require an argument and justification. 

I know a number of teachers that use the SCAN tool at TregoED to help get students comfortable in reading and understanding complex situations.  The tool provides great reading passages on all sorts of relevant and authentic situations.  A great way to get students to practice strategic thinking, with the SCAN critical thinking strategy built right in.  Newspapers and magazines are also a great source of reading passages.  Do you have a great resource for complex reading passages that you can share?

Can you prepare kids for testing AND teach them to think?

A friend of mine was substituting in a classroom yesterday with students taking a practice NJASK test.  The students were writing in response to an article about changing Pluto’s status from a planet to a dwarf planet.   She was left speechless after reading the students' responses.  They wrote things that were totally off the topic, drew ridiculous conclusions, and most did not answer the question, etc.  She noticed that the students were using an acronym to help them with the mechanics of writing.  The mechanics did not seem to be the problem.  She was really shocked at the student’s inability to come up with reasonable content in their writing.

Community Reading Assignments
In discussing this with a colleague, it was mentioned that a neighboring school starts each week with an article that every student, teacher and administrator reads.   This seems like a pretty powerful practice to me, especially if teachers and students were using a critical thinking process that gave them a common vocabulary to discuss it.  What a great way to get kids reading, give adults connections, start conversations, develop critical thinking (and of course, raise those test scores)! 

SCANning Complex Situations
Having a set of common questions for all complex situations is a great way to get students in the habit of thinking and helping them develop content for their writing.   Who might have a point of view or opinion on the topic?  Who are the stakeholders?  What are some of the issues?  Which issues are most important?  What do you think should be done?  These higher order thinking questions are the basis for SCAN, the critical thinking strategy from TregoED.  (See the issues, Clarify the issues, Ask what’s important, and Now, what should be done?)  Getting kids reading informational text and SCANning is an excellent way to give kids practice for high stakes testing.  Giving them articles with relevance and of high interest is part of the equation.  Many of our students know how to write, they get the mechanics, but how do they learn “what to write?”  That takes some critical and creative thinking.

Technology Makes it Easy
How can teachers fit one more thing in the day?  Why not use social media and discussion platforms to deliver the articles and start the discussions?  Leveraging student enthusiasm for writing in social media platforms, complete with the ability to share and respond to others' writing is a great way to get students enthusiastically contributing.  The benefits are many – students are more engaged, writing for an audience of their peers is incentive for more careful writing, reading other students work gives them models to work from and it is great way to practice reading and writing short constructed responses

The SCAN Tool
Of course, using the SCAN tool at TregoED is the perfect way to get students practicing the steps of SCAN as the questions are built right into the discussion platform.  You just select a scenario (or attach an article), students pick a point of view and they enter the discussion with screen names and avatars.   Using a couple of SCAN sessions within your content area can give students a better understanding of the content area and familiarize them with the questions.    Each one of the steps progresses up the scale of higher order thinking and with student’s playing different roles they support their points of view with gusto!  SCAN has a library of lessons dealing with current events, social issues, history, and science.  These problem-based topics are perfect for getting students to look at other perspectives on hot issues while teaching them a critical thinking strategy. 

Collaborize Classroom
Collaborize Classroom also offers a discussion platform where it is easy to link and article and use the SCAN questions to start the conversation.  Bottom line, kids like to write in this kind of platform, share what they wrote and comment on each others' writing.  Practicing critical thinking with relevant informational text is a great way to get students prepared for those dreadful questions asked on high stakes testing without making them “practice taking the test!"  Technology can make it relatively painless!  A win-win!