This is a workshop designed to address issues of standardized testing and answers the essential question, how do teachers balance standardized testing with teaching creatively?

1. How to balance
standardized tests with
teaching creatively…
In-service Workshop for EPR 688
Ms. Gail Harper Yeilding
Ms. Rachel Rives

2. A-Z Brainstorm
(teach testing vocabulary)
Complete on your handout.
 Assessment
 Benchmark
 Check your answers
 Dialogue
 Efficiency
 … Zilch to fear

3. 4 Guiding Questions…
(Turn and Talk)
 1) How are we as educators supposed to respond
effectively and creatively to the pressures of
standardized testing?
 2) Is there a standardized test that can be all
together fair?
 3) What would performance and portfolio
assessments replacing standardized tests look like?
 4.) How can teachers motivate students to do their
best work when testing?

4. Preparing your students
for testing
 After School Tutoring
 1-1 instruction that targets specific skills
 Study groups
 Test taking tips
 Build up their confidence
 Discuss the make up and reason for the test and it’s importance
 Build up to the test, incentives or parties
 Preparation for day of: effective plan, healthy breakfast, plenty of
sleep, short exercise or stretching

5. Test Taking Tips For
Students
 The video below has a good amount of test taking
tips that will help improve the scores of your
students. They will also be more excited to hear the
information from people their own age.
 Teacher Tube- Testing Tips

6. Time Issues?
• How do teachers fit in the time to accomplish all the
material that needs to be covered throughout the
year along with making sure they have covered all
testing material?

7. Dealing with Time
 Teachers can create more innovative lessons to
incorporate more elements of their curriculum
 Use more differentiated lessons where students are
practicing multiple skills
 Use more outside resources
 Collaborate with your colleagues
 Practice testing skills while working with other materials
that need to be covered throughout the year

8. Teaching to the test?!?
 Often the pressures of testing cause some teachers to “water
down” the curriculum in a belief that they are helping the
students as well as protecting their careers.
 This is absolutely not needed if we are doing our jobs!
 FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
“In a sense exceptional teachers teach to the test without even
realizing it. Excellent teachers satisfy the requirements of state
assessments without spoon-feeding the content.”
 Longo, C. (2010). Fostering Creativity or Teaching to the Test? Implications of State Testing on the
Delivery of Science Instruction. Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas,
83(2), 54-57. Retrieved from EBSCOhost .

9. Fair Testing for all?
-culturally appropriate
-respectful of all circumstances and abilities
-gives students the opportunity to show what they know
-clear directions and expectations
Consider the following articles:
 http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-01-07-no-child_x.htm
 http://www.fairtest.org/arn/caseagainst.html

10. What accommodations do you
use for students during testing?
 Small room vs. large room
 Read-to groups or 1-1
 Re-test opportunities
 Report test irregularities
 No time constraint
 Translations for English Learners

11. More
Accommodations…
 Provide special acoustics
 Allow frequent breaks during testing
 Administer the test in several sessions, specifying
the duration of each day’s session
 Increase size of answer spaces
 Provide on-task/ focusing prompts
 Highlight key words or phrases in directions and
provide cues

12. Limiting Test Anxiety
 Acknowledge that it exists and ask students to
describe it
 Speak positively about the test
 Teach test taking skills and help students apply
these skills
 Take practice tests

13. More On Limiting Test
Anxiety…
 Reward effort and gains in testing
 Allow for time to stretch/moment of silence/ self-
talk before starting the test
 Make sure all students have adequate resources
(pencils, scratch paper, calculators when
appropriate, etc.)
 Follow up with data-driven instruction

14. Performance Assessments
 Performance assessments are alternatives to standardized
testing with a specific outcome from the student.
 ETS defines these as, “A test in which the test taker actually
demonstrates the skills the test is intended to measure by
doing real-world tasks that require those skills, rather than by
answering questions asking how to do them. Typically, those
tasks involve actions other than marking a space on an answer
sheet or clicking a button on a computer screen. A pencil-and-
paper test can be a performance assessment, but only if the
skills to be measured can be done, in a real-world
context, with a pencil and paper.
 Resource for implementation:
http://performanceassessment.org

15. Portfolio Assessments
 A portfolio assessment allows the students to display and
present their learning as an assessment.
 Defined by ETS as, “A systematic collection of materials
selected to demonstrate a person's level of knowledge, skill or
ability in a particular area. Portfolios can include written
documents (written by the person being evaluated or by
others), photos, drawings, audio or video recordings and other
media. Often the types of documents and other media to be
provided are specified in detail.”
 Here’s an idea of what they look like:
Watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sihIwdjGY0o

16. Additional Resources…
 AHSGE and SAT prep: Full exams, practice game, and
video tutorials for specific skills http://usatestprep.com
 University of Kansas’ Strategies Lab: PIRATES and many
other ways to build esteem for testing
http://www.kucrl.org/sim/strategies.shtml
 Study Skills, test taking and many other tips for students
and parents : http://www.testtakingtips.com
 Ways to limit test anxiety:
http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/school/testing
_tips.html
 Any others?