Three Important Things to Remember When Testing Season is Here

In the many years I have been coaching teachers, February has always been an interesting time. As it seems to be when my teachers’ focus turns from their vision centered classrooms to another classroom all together. They are told that they need to begin preparing students for the state tests (this happened in North Carolina, Nevada, and Colorado). My question is, “If you are teaching them what they need to learn, then you likely have been preparing them for the test all year. Right?”

I get that testing techniques can be helpful. As someone who would not consider herself a good test-taker I am sure some strategies would have been helpful to me. However, as I have seen over the years and even since my oldest son came home last year sharing his anxiety around the state test, I have begun to stand my ground and say, “How we are preparing our students for these tests is not the right way to go about it!”

We have to be more thoughtful and here are three things all educators should consider when preparation for testing season has arrived.

1. Love Your Students: Don’t Lose Them to the Test

First and foremost, our students are human. They do not deserve to be treated like robots, nor do they deserve to be told how this test defines them.

I actually had to talk to a teacher when my son came home crying and said, “My teacher said if I don’t do well on the state test, I won’t be in the gifted class anymore.” You could imagine my heart and feelings around this. I was shook and appalled and of course sought to understand, guessing, hoping that these words were not spoken to my son. When the teacher and I did talk she shared that in essence, this was a message she relayed because so many students didn’t seem to take the test seriously and she wanted them to know that this test mattered and that a lot of tests are used to inform if students are to stay in the certain classes, the state test included.

When introducing tests to your students, put them first. Put the love and care you have for your students at the top of your priorities. Here are a few things you can say.

• “You all have become more and more brilliant and I can’t wait for you to get to show off your hard work on this upcoming state test!”

• “We will do some practicing to understand what the test will look like and feel like, and because you are such hard workers I am confident in your ability to do your best.”

• “Did you know that you are like doctors, lawyers, teachers, pilots? When people decide on their career, they learn and learn and learn and at the end of their schooling they show what they know. You all get to do this too.”

• “I like when we get to see what you know because it tells me how much I have taught you and what I still need to teach you! I am here for you and we are in this together!”

2. Learning is about Liberation

Have you all seen the cartoon where a graduate goes into an interview for her first job and request that the question be asked in the form of multiple choice? She also looks around for a partner to “think-pair-share” with when she is unable to answer a question. (You can find it here in case you want a laugh or a sigh). I realize, this is an embodiment of the No Child Left Behind era and I would say that strides are being made to make testing more rigorous and even more meaningful in the sense that students get to write more, show how they are solving problems and even in some cases explain their thinking. But for most assessments, particularly with state standardized tests, they are not adequately showcasing our students’ abilities to think and communicate.

For those who have worked with me, you know that I am a proponent of the concepts of critical and liberatory pedagogies. Both concepts are truly about developing our skillset to think for ourselves and critically examine what is being presented to us, especially from the lens of oppression. This is far from how I learned, but when I founded and began work with my program Wake Up!: Students for Educational Equity I realized this was the way in which we must “reimagine” education. Dr. Zaretta Hammond speaks eloquently about this in her book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, explaining, “I wanted to share how the principles of cultural responsiveness, when coupled with the science of learning, can be leveraged for liberatory education—which means positioning students to be the leaders of their own learning by helping them increase their ability to actively improve their cognition.”

As you prepare your students for these tests, both in the multiple choice and written form, you can still provide space for liberatory practices. As students are practicing the tests, don’t let the test be all they do. Take the test prep one step further and allow your students to be active in their arguments around their answers and their thinking. Allow them to engage in thoughtful dialogue about what they are reading or doing on the test. We improve our students’ cognition by asking them why; by understanding their thinking. Don’t stop at the test prep. If you must test prep, expand it by really allowing students to be critical learners of what is in front of them.

3. Coverage is NOT Learning: It is NOW time to Deepen Students’ Learning

While the concept of content is often review at this point in the year, that is fine, but now is not the time to do the following:

1) Now is NOT the time to get into the “coverage” mindset and try to get through everything you haven’t taught

2) Now is NOT the time for surface level/ myopic memorization review

Now IS the time to go deeper with what you have taught and allow students to practice skills that will allow them to be more thoughtful in their thinking. Just as you are reinforcing the liberation of their learning, this is where you put that into practice. Give them something contrary to what they might have already learned and see their brains grapple with what has just been presented. Yes Jeopardy and Kahoot are fun, however, are they really pushing students’ thinking to support actual learning or are they merely reviewing to memorize? Here are three quick and pretty easy to implement ideas of what you can do so that all students are participating and thinking.

• Math: Chalk-Walks where a problem is presented on a poster and students work collaboratively to do one part of the problem. When they head to the next poster, they must do the next step of the problem and so on. Where this gets tricky is when a group might have done part of the problem incorrect.
• Reading Comprehension: Instead of four multiple choice problems, give students two answers that are similar and sides could be argued for either. Fishbowl this process with multiple groups and really push students to put into practice the skills in which they will need to really think, having to explain why A or B is the better answer.
• Have students write about what they have learned. Let them synthesize their learning. Let them go cross-curricular and write about mathematical concepts. Bottom-line, have students write, write, and write some more. (Here is the “other” video that showcases the importance of this.)

Test season is almost here, that is our reality, but we do not have to perpetuate a reality that is unhealthy for our students OR our educators.

Remember:

• Your students are human, this is not the easiest time of year, with your love, it will help remind them that they can make it through.

• We don’t want our students to be unsuccessful in the future. Treat their learning as it is their liberation, because it is.

• Teaching is not about coverage. If you are trying to cover content, remember your students are likely not learning it. What’s your goal? For you to get through your content or for your students to learn?

Click here for more resources including my Free Liboratory Classroom Reflection Guide!

For more on my thinking and implementation of Liberatory Pedagogy, be sure to sign up for my free Foundations of a Liberatory Classroom Webinar. (Summer 2022)