Why We Really Can't Afford to Teach to the Test

If you are at all involved in education, whether you're a teacher, a student teacher, a student, or a parent, you have probably heard the popular alliterated phrase "teaching to the test." Until World War II, standardized tests didn't even exist. The SAT was first created to filter the surge of college applicants resulting from the GI Bill. When my mother was a child, elementary school students did not have standardized tests. Until the 1970s, publishing test results in newspapers just wasn't a thing.

We went crazy over standardized testing when George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law. Now, when you hear "teaching to the test," you know that it is supposed to be bad, even if you don't know why. Logically, if we test students on what they are supposed to learn, teaching to that test should not be a problem, right? And we want to measure how well teachers do because we don't want them to slack off, right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Let me break it down and explain why teaching to the test is bad for our education system and bad for the future of America's economy.

What do these test measure?

The first thing to understand is that tests don't have validity, inferences do. 

Validity is how well a test consistently measures what it is supposed to. An inference is a conclusion drawn based on information or data. A set of test results is just data. So the test, being pure data, cannot be valid. Instead, the inferences we make based on that data are what have validity. Example:

A multiple choice test on the characters of Harry Potter is not valid by itself. If the test covers a wide range of characters in a balanced way, the inference that students who score well on it have knowledge of Harry Potter characters is valid. The inference that those same students also have wide knowledge of the themes of Harry Potter is less valid. The inference that they are also good at biochemistry would be completely invalid.

Standardized tests-- like a Harry Potter test is not meant to measure knowledge of biochemistry-- are not designed to measure how well a teacher teaches. 

Bad teachers.

The idea that a pencil and paper test is the magic barrier keeping bad teachers from teaching is absurd. Giving a list of facts to teach will not magically improve a poorly trained teacher, and the assumption that bad teachers are bad because they don't want to teach kids is insulting. Teachers have one of the lowest paygrades for the level of education required and work long hours planning and grading. People are teachers because they want to be teachers. If they aren't, the natural cycle of teacher turnover and administrative observations will weed them out far better than a scantron test created by a corporation.

Apples and oranges.

Classroom exams are made to compare students to content. The goal is for everyone who knows the material to score 100% and students who don't know it to fail. Mastery of the content and exam is ideal.

Standardized exams compare students to students (not content).  These tests are not made to provide pass/fail results. The items that most students do well on are useless in differentiating between students, so they are omitted from the exam. These items are usually basics and foundations.

If we do not include foundations and basics on our test, then teaching to that test gives students superficial knowledge that lacks the roots of understanding and therefore will be shortly forgotten. We are already seeing this with the AP exam. In order to differentiate between a group of already over-achieving high school students, questions such as what is Calculus? are left off the test. Yet we can all agree, even if we are not math teachers, that students testing out of introductory level Calculus should understand what Calculus is. Because of reasons like these, college entrants trained to answer a bunch of questions without really tying the information together and building a foundation, many colleges are now deciding not to accept the AP exams.

Individualized inferences.

Standardized tests are fantastic for individual achievement inferences. They are not designed to test teachers. A combination of High School GPA and SAT scores are still incredibly good predictors of first-year college performance for individual students. Standardized tests have a point, but publishing scores in the newspaper to foster competition between schools is not the point.

Standardized tests with no consequences for students are unfair measurements of teaching because-- in many cases-- the students have no incentive not to blow off the test. In fact, it is much preferable to bubble random answers and take a nap. The types of questions we find on standardized tests often only test lower-level thinking. A student might correctly identify who wrote the Declaration of Independence, who signed it, and who made the famous ride to warn that "the British are coming!", but that does not guarantee that they will understand the underlying causes of the American Revolution. Which do you think is more important?

Then how do we test our education system?

So yes, these tests do have their purposes. A well-written reading comprehension test is valid for determining which students need remediation in reading. The point is, if we make the jobs of teachers hinge on their students bubbling correct answers on a scantron, the quality of our education system will suffer. Students will leave school with a memorized list of facts, but they will never really learn anything of importance. Memorizing the names of political figures won't help them decide who to vote for and knowing the meaning of "remediation" won't help them determine the meaning of the next unfamiliar word they come up against. 

Observations and continuing education are vital to strengthening our education system. All of our focus is placed on the quality of our teachers, yet teachers aren't deciding the curriculum taught. As long as we're cutting funding to struggling schools and letting politicians decide what to cut from textbooks, our children will suffer. There are ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher, but I guarantee you it has little to do with making dots with number two pencil.

Pinterest Goes Private (And What that Means for Education)

Yesterday Pinterest announced a new program and launched it on a small, test scale. Pinterest users can find three private boards at the bottom of their profile, intended for planning Christmas presents, surprise parties, and any kind of event you might not be ready to share with the public. These boards can have multiple pinners (by invite only) and keep your content hidden from the feed.

Being a nerdy teacher, and currently being challenged to insert five unique types of technology integration into a unit plan, my immediate thoughts did not go to Christmas shopping or baby showers. I, of course, was plotting uses for education.

A few months ago I wrote a blog post about ways to use Pinterest for education. Most of those were ideas for teacher Pin Boards (though I am working on a follow-up post that includes more student-use ideas). However, for the few ideas that asked students to create their own board, and for the many ideas you undoubtedly have, this new feature is a blessing.

When students post work to the internet, we as teachers have the responsibility to make sure that it is their best, portfolio-level work. After all, what goes up there stays up there. Private boards give students a chance to post works-in progress and only invite teachers to look at them. A teacher can comment and help students work out their ideas without anyone else being able to look at the project. Privacy on Pinterest will help ease some students' anxiety and give teachers a new avenue for constructive feedback.

What are you Pinterest education ideas?

Maus I- Chapters 1-3: A Discussion Lesson Plan

The following lesson plan is a discussion plan, including focus questions to walk students through Chapters 1-3 of Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History. These questions are targeted for 9-10 grade reading comprehension, but can be adapted for other grade levels. Answers for these questions are not provided, so teachers should do their own reading and add-to or edit-out questions they are not comfortable with before presenting this plan.

Click to read more for the full plan.

Censoring Comics: A Simulation Lesson Plan

This post begins a series of lesson plans for a comic book unit. These plans can be adapted for 9-11th grade, (and some for middle school) depending on your state curriculum. The first lesson, Censoring Comics, asks students to simulate a Comics Code Authority ratings board, so that they can understand how restrictive the CCA regulations were, and how personal bias influences all ratings systems.

Click to read more for the full plan.

The Graphic Textbook

My buddy Dave Wheeler and Mindwave comics brought something awesome to my attention today via their Twitter feed. A group of awesome comic artists are working on a textbook that fits Common Core standards AND that kids will want to read. The Graphic Textbook lives as a Kickstarter campaign that ends in six days. If you have some spare change to donate to a good cause, head on over and help out. There are rewards for donating.

The Graphic Textbook unites the finest creative talents in the comics industry with the nation's leading experts in visual literacy to create a gamechanging educational tool for the classroom and beyond, one that’s tied to a revolutionary impact study overseen by the Learning Sciences Department of Northwestern University. 

The goal is to create an awesomeness-filled book of the highest artistic quality and literary merit that also meets all the criteria necessary to be accepted as classroom curriculum. 

Aimed at grades 3-6, The Graphic Textbook features a dozen short stories (both fiction and non-fiction) that address topics in a variety of disciplines (Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, Science) drawn from the list of Common Core Standards used in classrooms countrywide. The accompanying Teacher’s Guide will include Standards-correlated lesson plans customized to each story, research-based justifications for using comics in the classroom, a guide to establishing best classroom practices and a comprehensive listing of additional educational resources.

The Graphic Textbook will prove once and for all that comics belong in the classroom by creating a comic that every teacher will actually want to use and a textbook that every student will actually want to read!

Page Count: 144
Print Format: Hardcover
Digital Format: ComicsPlus and DRM-free, print-quality PDF
Bonus Material: 100-page digital Teacher's Guide

Sound like a good idea? I think it sounds like a GREAT idea. It's almost completely funded (less than $10k to go!) and a $25 donation can get you a copy of the finished book. Chances are it will cost at least that retail, so if you're a grade 3-6 teacher, this might be a smart investment for you!

QR Credit: Using QR Codes to Links Students to Extra Content for Independent Reading

Marketers are going crazy over QR codes right now. They offer a great way to their audience directly from a print ad (a sign or a piece of mail) to a website. Smartphone users find themselves scanning QR codes just for the sake of curiosity, and that is why they are so powerful.

Curiosity is one of the most crucial elements of learning. It is a strong desire to know or learn something. A want to learn. The popular KWL chart (Know, Want to Know, Learned) relies on that "Want to Know"column to guide learning. As teachers, it is our greatest struggle to make kids want to know. This is where that QR code comes in.

You can adapt this idea to many usages, but specifically this plan is for reading/literature teachers. The idea is to use QR codes printed on labels inside or on the backs of classroom library books, to link to extra credit assignments. They can be specific assignments for that particular book or something as general a list of essay topics. You can link to your own assignments posted on your classroom blog or to an assignment someone has posted on a third-party website.

Between 2009 and 2011, the number of teens with smartphones tripled to 4.8 million. Imagine how many of your students will have them in 2012 and beyond! At home (unless your school technology policy allows for the use of mobile devices with teacher supervision, then you can do it at school!), students can use a smartphone (theirs or their parents') or a tablet device with a camera to scan the QR code and navigate to the assignment page. The excitement of getting to scan a code will get them to the site. It's your job after that to make the assignment seem worth it.

Note: You'll have to be sure that- unless you teach at one of those lucky schools with iPads for all- you accompany the QR code with a printed URL that students on the wrong side of the digital divide can type into their browser to get the same information.

You can go to Kaywa for the purpose of generating codes. They look like this:

Tech Savvy Tip: If you have your own classroom blog, I would recommend setting up the permalink  to the assignment to be short and text-based. 

Curriculum Tip: At the start of a book, hand out bookmarks with a QR code linking to that unit on the class blog. Students can scan it to pull up extra-help study guides or printable versions of graphic organizers.

Pinterest In The Classroom: 5 Ideas & 4 Tips

Pinterest is the latest, hottest social network. It is a visual bookmarking site, allowing you to collect images and links onto pin boards (like bulletin boards) and share them with your friends. Here are five ways to use Pinterest in your classroom.

1. Idea Collection
The number one educational use for Pinterest right now is collection. You can find lots of wonderful ideas for classroom crafts, lesson plans, and ways to decorate your environment. While most of the activities available on Pinterest are for K-6 (they have cuter projects), many of these projects can be adapted for older students.

The great resources I've found for my secondary classroom include cartoons explaining grammar rules, classroom rules posters, and DIY desktop pencil organizers.

Elementary educators can expect to find Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprint art, recipes for themed snacks, melted crayon paintings and more.


2. Interactive Study Guides
Now we get into less conventional uses. This is a great idea for your visual and hands-on students who need images and interaction to remember information. Create a pin-board study guide!

You'll need to create a list of questions for your study guide. Then find internet resources to answer those questions and pin them with the question as the description. Be sure to find pages with visual interest. A test about anatomy could show a chart of the parts of the brain with the description, "Which part of the brain is responsible for memory," and link to a page about the human brain.

3. Independent Reading Lists
Create a pin board with age appropriate titles of merit, using their covers for the visual aspect. Link to Amazon, Goodreads, or a book review site. Refer students to this list for Independent reading assignments or liesure reading.

3b. Likewise, you can create a list of topics for assignments and let students pick off of the pin board. Let them choose topics for papers about twentieth century artists by looking at their images and linking to a blurb about the topic they might choose. Give them background information before choosing.

4. Research Projects
Have students create their own pin boards to organize research. Are they studying Ancient Greece? Have them pin images of art, videos about myths, and photographs of the landscape. Make learning constructive and visual with a Pinterest research projects.


5. Extra Help
Create a classroom pin board with links to videos and articles for further explanation and exploration.


Universal Tips:
Here are some things you should remember, no matter what your application!

• Visual- Be certain to use a strong image on your bookmark. It will make an impression with students and help keep your board organized.
• Description- Utilize descriptions. Most casual Pinterest users only post small comments. In the classroom, images should be matched with strong study guide questions, descriptions, etc. Let your students use all parts of their brain for higher impact.
• Link- It's nice to collect pictures, but try to collect them from reliable sites with valuable content. You can find The Hunger Games book cover on a number of sites, so pin it from a site that has value. Choose scholarly articles, well-written reviews, or Amazon purchase pages.
• Organization- Make sure that your boards have a clear purpose. "My Classroom", "Graphic Design", and "Ancient Greece" are some examples of strong themes. Organization will help you find saved links later and help the other users utilize your pin boards.

Hunger Games Contestant Tracker

Worksheet Preview

I just finished reading The Hunger Games for the first time. I loved it, but I decided that I needed a visual guide to help keep track of all twenty-four contestants. If a fluent-reader, age twenty-five, needs a visual guide, then I'm sure middle-school students could benefit from a graphic organizer, too.

Fitting enough space for details on twenty-four contestants on one page proved impossible. Despite the fact that some contestants are never detailed, I decided to keep the blocks uniform. Students will have to decide what Katniss and Peeta information they can omit from the chart.

Download the 3-page PDF printout here.

NOTE: Keep this post on hand as you work your way through the series. This worksheet may also be useful for tracking the Quarter Quell contestants in Catching Fire.

The Fault In Our Stars: Anticipation Guide

An anticipation guide is a great way to get students discussing the major themes in a piece of reading before ever opening the book. The statements in an anticipation guide are meant to be controversial in order to open a debate. There are no right or wrong answers. Students who become emotionally and intellectually invested in a text before they started are better motivated. Students who try to piece together clues to make predictions about their reading are taking a valuable step towards comprehension.

This is a PDF file, a printable anticipation guide for John Green's The Fault In Our Stars. It was written as part of an assignment for a University of Montevallo graduate education course. Feel free to print it and use it with your class.

[Download]