Standardized Testing (This is not a rant, I promise...)

For the first five or ten minutes of class every day, I ask my freshmen to write in response to a prompt.  Sometimes I show them a picture and ask them to create a story.  Sometimes I give them a personal prompt, like to write about what they would wish for if they found a magic lamp and a genie or what the perfect birthday present would be.  Sometimes I ask them to write about topics thematically related to the texts we are studying in class, and sometimes I give them a prompt that's designed to elicit specific information because I'm curious.

That's what happened this past week when I asked students to write about their feelings related to standardized testing.  Last week's administration of the PSAT and ReadiStep tests made me curious.  We'd been doing some test preparation activities in class and talking about test taking strategies, but I was curious about their true feelings about their past performance; after all, these students have been tested in various ways for years.  I mean, I know that students always groan and complain about these tests that require them to fill in various bubble sheets with number two pencils, but I wanted to probe a little deeper.  What I found was interesting.

My students honestly didn't know why they were always asked to take these sorts of tests.  They thought the primary purpose was to separate the smart kids from the not-so-smart kids, which most of my students dubbed themselves as.  When I asked them how they had done on past tests, they said that they had no idea.  They had never really looked at the score reports themselves.  They had some small idea about their Lexile level, but they had no inkling about last year's Terra Nova scores, for example.  All in all, my students felt very disconnected from the tests they were asked to take.  They knew they got to miss their regular classes, and they knew that it was important for them to try hard to do well, but they also had a defeatist attitude - despite the fact that they had never really seen their results on past tests, they truly believed that they would never do well on these types of tests because they just weren't smart enough.

As I read their writer's notebook entries, it made me sad.  It also made me question the purpose of these assessments and whether there would be any difference or improvement upon our switch to the Smarter Balanced test.  For example, as an English teacher, I do not often give multiple choice exams - my students tend to write short answer and essay exams.  I teach test preparation strategies, but often students cannot use those strategies on the tests I design for my own classroom, because I'm more concerned with how students can execute and sustain a written argument about the literary texts we're examining in class than I am about their ability to answer an SAT-style multiple choice question.  I don't know if the exam switch will help me and my students make more of a specific connection between what happens in class and what they're tested on, but I can only hope.  My hope is partially founded in the notion that the new exam includes some constructed responses and does not rely almost exclusively on multiple choice questions.

My hope, though, is also tinged with a little bit of skepticism.  My understanding is that the Smarter Balanced is a computer adaptive test.  We do not have one-to-one device capabilities at my school, and my students have never been asked to take an assessment of this type before.  They are used to traditional paper and pencil exams with bubble sheets, but an exam via computer delivery will be something new and different for them.  Will it be better?  I don't know, but I do know that they feel really disconnected from the system that's in place right now.  I imagine that a system that helps them make more of a connection between what's happening in their classes and what they're being tested on will help them form a more clear picture of themselves as learners.  Fingers crossed.

Digital Writing: The case of multiple authors...

Growing up, I hated, loathed, detested, and despised group work.  It was awful - the bane of my existence and the cause of many a sleepless night.  What you may not know about me is that I'm a very type-A extrinsically motivated person.  I can also be a little bit of a control freak.  What that meant, when it came to group work, was that I didn't trust anyone else enough to complete the project as well as I could and therefore guarantee me the A I so highly coveted.  Hence, I tended to do the group work all by myself, and for the most part, my group members let me.  Who were they to complain?

Fast forward into the 21st century.  Nowadays, group work can easily be accomplished via sites like Google and by means of wikis.  Not only group work, but group authorship.  More than one author can work on and edit a document for instant publication on the Internet.  For me, this is a little bit frightening.

The English teacher in me asks questions about authorial intent and voice.  How can one piece have a consistent voice when multiple authors are at work on it?  How can you be sure, when there are multiple authors, that there is a shared sense of purpose - are they all writing for the same reason, with the same aim and audience in mind? 

It's hard enough to teach students to write as individuals, but to teach them to write collaboratively?  Wow.  I mean, I ask students to peer edit each others' work, they share response journals and respond to each other, they even respond to each others' blog posts, but as a teacher, I've never really asked them to co-author a formal piece together.  Maybe that's because I'm still haunted by my own experiences with group work as a student, or maybe it's because I'm just not sure how to go about doing it.

I'm about to embark on a collaborative writing project myself.  It's not the first.  A fellow English teacher and I co-authored the final report the last time our school went through NEASC accreditation.  It was a huge report, but we were both professionals with a clear sense of purpose and audience, so it was easy for us to work together and create a unified piece.  The whole idea seems like a much bigger challenge when dealing with students.  Maybe this new collaborative writing experience I'm about to begin will help me figure out how to meet and get my students to rise to that challenge.  I'll have to keep you posted!