Pedagogy and Praxis Day 16

So this week is the last week of STAR testing. We got testing on Tuesday and Thursday. I decided not to give out vocab words this week cause kids brains were fried last week and they didn't do so well on the vocab quiz. Everyone agrees that STAR testing messes up things for everybody. I don't want to set them up for failure and teach words that no one will end up learning. Instead I talked about STAR testing and taught them the PIRATES strategy for test taking. Pirates stands for:

Prepare to Succeed
Inspect the Instructions
Read, remember, reduce
Answer or Abandon
Turn back
Estimate
Survey

I also taught them the basic strategy to do easy questions first so that they get the most points possible. Then with the remaining time they should do the hard questions.

Then I gave them released test questions from previous STAR tests. I had them take the test using the Pirates strategy and then we answered the questions. The questions were from the 10th grade STAR test but many students had trouble answering the questions. The whole point though was to teach them to use the strategy and to teach them how to make educated guesses. Then I went through the questions and answered and modeled how to think and how to eliminate. I also pointed out the hardest questions which students should have just skipped and come back to later. One example was:

In 1900, anti-foreign sentiment in China led to an uprising known as the

A Nian Rebellion
B Boxer Rebellion
C Taiping Rebellion
D Sepoy Rebellion

Unless the student knew about these rebellions they would have trouble using the PIRATES strategies. Other questions had answers that could be puzzled out and reduced through careful thought, but this question was an either you know it or you don't. These tests are lame and No Child Left Behind is a joke. If money is to be distributed based on test scores then areas with low test scores should get more money cause they need more resources to help raise them up. Instead the regressive thinking seems to believe that low test scores schools should get less money. I see a parallel to the racist assumptions that say why put money into colored communities cause its not like it will help them. The conservative line is that throwing money at the problem will not fix the problem. I agree with that. However, the problem cannot be fixed if schools lack the resources. Money is only part of the solution but it is an essential part of that solution.