Teach THROUGH the Test

When I was in high school I was lucky enough to be a part of a state championship track & field team. As the end of our dual meet season came and we prepared for our local conference meet, our coach told us we were going to train through it. In other words we continued to condition very hard and work to improve rather than making the conference meet our goal. The idea was founded in the principle that our performance at the conference meet was not nearly as important as the district and state meets that came later on.

Segue to testing.

Testing must be treated the same way as this conference meet. Currently I have students taking exams and am actively attempting to use this exam as a tool to continue to teach information and skills to those who have not yet mastered them. I can say that out of 90 students I have 3 who I believe are not at the level I would consider proficient and would therefore fail the exam. Rather than allow this, these students will need to use this time to relearn(or learn) the material. It is simply unacceptable to me that students could attempt to leave my class with little or no understanding of ancient history, with limited ability to create arguments or minimal ability to analyze and evaluate using high quality secondary and/or primary sources. With these goals in mind I design my assessments to be a further teaching tool.

In FOCUS by Mike Schmoker I read that OSU's physics dept uses buzzers to formatively assess student learning and they immediately alter instruction to match their results. I do this by having students write responses to in class questions. I do not use percentages to the same extreme but I do immediately clear up student misconceptions. I try to hold the standard to 100% though because if i let any student leave without understanding then I will ultimately fail them. Exams at the end of units can also be this type of teaching tool, if you see a student struggling to write an essay, help, then have them re-write! Why not use this as a summative data-set to improve remedial instruction?

The next question is, how does this alter the meaning of grades?

Panel Discussions

Today we are doing panel discussions regarding the way we view Greeks in history. The debate centers around whether we should see their contributions as positive, negative or something else entirely. Students have produced the best discussion, showed tremendous motivation and are absolutely making this the finest day of my career. They have incorporated contemporary history, current events, philosophy, morality and life lessons into their discussions. IT IS UNBELIEVABLE!!!

What a day

What a meaningful day, as I shared with students, I heard back from an author who has shaped quite a bit of what I do as a teacher, I saw fantastic work coming from my 7th graders extended essays AND was treated to some fantastic debate over the stability of the Athenian and Spartan states. All in all the streak continues as I continue to have the best and most meaningful days of my career! I cant wait for tomorrow's debates, final revisions of our collapsing government essays in geography and of course for Wednesday (Don't forget) and our 6:40 AM morning meeting to discuss our enrichment journal that Dr. Fleck and Hanssen sent us! Listen folks, I need you to understand how special what you are doing is... you have 3 college professors recognizing your work in class right now, not many 17 year olds put in that kind of work! From here, we need to work harder to solidify our fundamentals and polish up our language while continuing to just have fun with academics...

Side note, I am working on getting patches or wristbands for our movement... FREE YOUR INNER NERD!!!