A warning about pre-assessment: you may know better than the numbers

When I was teaching sixth grade in California, I had two students who were attached at the hip. For the purposes of this story, I'll call them Betty and Veronica.

Betty and Veronica did everything together -- they often wore matching outfits -- and they felt lucky to be in the same math class, although they fretted that they weren't in the same math group.

The problem? Math came more easily to Betty, and Veronica often struggled with the subject -- therefore, after each pre-assessment, they would be visibly distraught each time they were placed in separate math groups.

"What could this score mean?"

I knew that Betty was quite capable in math, so imagine my surprise when -- halfway through the year -- the computer sorted her into the "lowest" math group as we entered our unit on Integers. I had seen some of her work on this subject, and I looked at that score like the RCA dog.

After some hours of denial, I finally admitted it to myself: Betty had purposely done poorly on the pre-assessment. She and Veronica had planned Betty's "flunking" of the test, so that they wouldn't be separated into different math groups again.

My suspicion was confirmed when I announced the math groups -- when I placed Veronica in that lowest math group, but sent Betty to the higher ability group, they looked at each other in shock. Their plan hadn't worked.

I learned my lesson that day: pre-assessments can be "gamed." Sometimes I need to look up from the numbers and instead use my "spider sense" to determine where the students really need to be.


Image retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/OriginalNipper.jpg

TEACH-NOW M6U2A3: Pre-Assessment in a Sixth Grade English Language Arts Classroom

Pre-assessment is an essential tool I plan to implement in a middle school ELA setting.


I will start with a summary of what students in Pennsylvania should be able to do by the end of their sixth grade year:

• Summarize texts
• Determine authors' points of view and examine their claims
• Understand structure, inferences, story arcs
• Learn how to acquire new vocabulary
• Understand informational texts
• Compare literary experiences (written stories vs. performed dramas vs. spoken word) 
• Read independently at grade level
• Write informative texts and reporting on research projects
• Write with an awareness of stylistic aspects of composition and conventions of language
• Write to state and support an opinion in a formal style
• Write narrative texts using a variety of narrative techniques
• Edit work for additional clarity and higher quality texts
• Use technology to collaborate and communicate without using plagiarism 
• Present and listen appropriately in formal speaking situations 

In order to teach every student at his or her level, I plan to pre-assess students throughout the first few weeks of sixth grade. 

If I know where the students are, I can better understand how to bring them to the "finish line" with these standards, and, furthermore, I will have a better understanding of which students will require differentiation throughout our program.

There are several existing pre-assessments that I could use to ascertain students' general grammatical and vocabulary abilities. For example, School on Wheels developed a sixth grade pre- and post-assessment that covers the basics quite well.

Excerpts from their pre-assessment include questions based on textual evidence such as:

8. What is Elijah’s main problem in the story? {Be Able to Read and Comprehend Grade Appropriate Texts | CCSS RL.5.10, RL.5.2, RL.5.4} a. The key his mother needs is old and rusty. b. He is angry because his mother made him leave the city. c. His mother no longer talks to him. d. He does not want to come home when his mother calls him.

Other examples are questions that test a student's ability to infer unit from contextual clues, such as:

14. What does the word "elaborate" mean in the sentence below? {Determine Meaning of a Word Meaning through Sentence Context | CCSS L.6.4.A & R.I.6.4} The teacher asked Russel to elaborate on his reasoning because she thinks it’s vague and unclear. a. Expand b. Complicated c. Fancy d. Simple

In addition to this type of basic pre-assessment, I would want to perform deeper tests to ascertain my students' current ability to work toward these standards. 

Rather than bombarding students with multiple hour-long tests at the beginning of the year, I would plan to execute these pre-assessments as a series of entrance tickets, and small assignments in the first few weeks of school. I would pluck through the standards listed above and give small bites of a larger pre-assessment as the students enter the classroom throughout September.

The tasks within this pre-assessment will map to the above-listed standards. These are my suggested pre-assessments for this purpose:

• Students will read a news story from that morning's newspaper, and summarize it in three to five sentences
• Students will read two opposing editorials regarding a high-interest topic (such as later start times in schools) then summarize each author's point of view.
• Students will create a story "map" of a well-known fairy tale.
• Students will make a Venn diagram of written stories, performed dramas, and spoken word presentations.
• Students will list the last two books they read "for fun" and then explain how much they enjoy reading in general. (They will be presented with a rainbow, and they can choose how they currently feel about reading for fun. Red means "I can't live without reading," and Purple means "I only read when I absolutely have to.")
• Students will write a quick "how to" about a topic of their choice, such as "how to get ready for a hockey game" or "how to take the bus to my Grandma's house." 
• Students will read a passage and highlight the parts that are grammatically incorrect and/or poorly supported by evidence
• After reading several letters to the editor in the local newspaper, students will spend 10-15 minutes sharing their opinion on a topic that is important to them. 
• Students will be asked to edit a tragically terrible paragraph, such as this paragraph provided by K12 Reader. 
• Students will be asked to collaborate with one classmate on a silly, short limerick, and share it with the class. (This is in order to test their ability to connect with classmates on an application such as Google Docs, and to collaborate in the most basic way.)
• Students will write and perform a brief opinion-based speech about their favorite animal. They will have just five minutes to silently research the animal before giving a two-minute presentation. This is a miniature test of their ability to perform in a speaking situation.

For the purposes of this discussion, I will focus in on the "tragically terrible paragraph" pre-assessment, and how the results of that pre-assessment will guide my teaching throughout our unit focused on the revision and editing process.

Assuming I have a class of 22 students, I will prepare for 5 students who have already mastered the sixth grade standard for editing, and are ready for a bigger challenge. I will prepare for 12 students who are approaching the standard, and are ready for sixth-grade level teaching on the subject, and I will furthermore prepare for 5 students who are well below the standard, and may have limited knowledge of the topic.

As a group, we will discuss revision as the process of making a written work better, and editing, the process of making a written work right. We will review what we problems we look for when we revise, and what results we look for when we edit.

We will then break into three groups, with different assignment, all working toward meeting the same standard.

Plan for Advanced Students

These students have caught every error and correctly edited it in the pre-assessment. Some of these students have even found additional errors or suggested unexpected revisions. These students will be challenged to revise and edit on an entirely new, unexpected level. Specifically, they will be challenged to take the first chapter of a book they know well, such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and revise it. What could have been done to improve this famous work of fiction?

These students will be able to understand that revision and editing is a process that can continue, even when a piece seems "perfect." There are multiple ways to present information, and they can dig straight into this tough piece -- at first by printing out the words and cutting the paragraphs into pieces, then by re-placing them in the text.

Plan for At-Grade-Level Students

These students will approach a few additional "tragically terrible texts" provided by the teacher, and use highlighters to identify additional edits and revisions that the author could make in order to improve the piece. They will be broken into "jigsaw" groups, and asked to look for very specific problem areas in small groups, such as lack of details, repetition, unnecessary verbiage, misspellings, grammatical issues, and finally, the order of the paragraphs. Could they find ways to rearrange the paragraphs themselves for better effect? They will, like the advanced group, eventually use scissors and glue to rearrange a fictional work for best effect.

Plan for Below-Grade-Level Students

These students will start with sentences at first -- they will compare two similar sentences, and choose which one is the best presentation of the text. They will be challenged to determine why one sentence is better than the other one. They will then compare paragraphs -- they will discuss which is the better constructed paragraph, and why?

Then this group will start with a tragically terrible short paragraph, and look for the same kind of errors they found in the inferior sentences. They will be tasked with finding a certain number of errors. After they have discovered all of the errors, they will each work individually to re-write the paragraph with the edits in place.

The larger revisions will be done as a group, from the same text that the At-Grade-Level. They will do popcorn reading and work together to manipulate the text, with the assistance of a teacher at a SmartBoard, to find the best fit for all the "puzzle pieces."

All 22 students should be able to meet or exceed the standard by the end of the lesson, which may stretch one or two class periods. This lesson will be done early in the school year, as the skills to revise and edit will come in handy throughout their sixth grade English Language Arts adventures. 

The assembly of these groups may vary from day-to-day, based on how they perform on pre-tests. For example, a student who was working with the Advanced Group in the above lesson may be Below-Grade in the opinion-based speech lesson. Therefore, these groups will remain fluid throughout the year, and it may be in some cases that members of the three groups will be deliberately mixed in group projects, so they can mentor and learn from one another throughout the year.

If I'm doing my job right, their sixth grade year in English Language Arts will be an ever-changing adventure!

References

6th Grade Pre- and Post-Assessment. (u.d.) Retrieved from https://www.schoolonwheels.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/6th-Grade-ELA.pdf

Alber, R. (2016, February 22) 4 Strategies for Teaching Students How to Revise. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/4-strategies-teaching-kids-how-revise-rebecca-alber

Editing and Proofing a Paragraph (u.d.) Retrieved from http://www.k12reader.com/worksheet/editing-and-proofing-a-paragraph/view/

Pennsylvania Department of Education. (2014 March 1) Academic Standards for English Language Arts: Grades 6-12. Retrieved from http://static.pdesas.org/content/documents/PA%20Core%20Standards%20ELA%206-12%20March%202014.pdf

Image of students working in a group retrieved from http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/group-work.jpg

Image of students reading a newspaper retrieved from http://www.startschoolnow.org/wp-content/uploads/campus-newspaper.jpg

Image of the "Revise vs. Edit" chart retrieved from https://i.pinimg.com/736x/95/85/09/958509ee4691642a7c0a80a3fc25f864--writing-tips-creative-writing.jpg

TEACH-NOW M6U1A3: High Stakes Assessment Comparison of College Entrance Exams in the United States and Germany

American students taking the SAT

In the United States, students are generally required to take at least one college entrance exam in order to apply to college. 

These include the SAT and ACT, and many colleges also ask to see students' AP test scores and SAT subject test scores as well. The preparation for these tests can be overwhelming, at best, and can drive students in the United States to withdraw socially and hyper-focus on attaining the highest score possible. (CBS Miami, 2013) 

Students in the United States will commonly take special test preparation courses, hire tutors, give up extracurricular activities, and spend all of their spare time drilling information in preparation for these many tests. 

All of this preparation can also be costly, and on top of that expense, there are the test fees themselves: about $60 for the ACT, $60 for the SAT, and $94 for every AP test a student takes.
The high stakes of these college entrance exams aren't just for the students, but teachers, schools, and districts can also be judged by the exam scores and similar state college readiness exams of their students. (Svab, 2013) Therefore, there can be an immense amount of pressure on not only each student, but also their families and schools, for that student to score well.

The German system
In Germany, there is one (free) final exam at the end of a university preparation student's high school career, and that is the Abitur. Although the Abitur is the most "high-stakes" that a high school exam can be, German students seem to experience less stress surrounding this exam, as it is simply the culmination of their years of concentrated study, and a long-term curriculum specifically designed to prepare German students to take this exam. 

As is shown in the below diagram, the Abitur is what all German Gymnasium students work towards in their academic careers: this one test needs to encompass all of their learning from the first through twelfth class. (Gymnasium schools are the university preparation schools in Germany, and German students are separated into Gymnasium schools anywhere from fifth to seventh grade.)

A diagram of Germany's education system

It's also worth noting that not every student in Germany takes the Abitur. Although the number of students taking the Abitur has increased since the 1970's, students who graduate from Realschule or Hauptschule are not expected to take the Abitur, but to attend a professional school or begin an apprenticeship. This means that unlike in the United States, most students in Germany are not spending their high school years preparing for a college entrance exam.

Specifically, as of the year 2000, only 11% of jobholders in the country of Germany had taken the Abitur. By contrast, in October 2016, almost 70% of high school graduates were enrolled in colleges or universities, almost all of whom require some form of college entrance exam. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016)

It's therefore possible to speculate that the extreme anxiety that American students (and their parents, as well as their teachers) experience surrounding college entrance exams may in some part be because those students are ill-prepared for the exams, having not been on a college preparatory track since fifth or sixth grade as German Gymnasium students are.

Abitur schools vary from state to state
Some recent studies in Germany have revealed a large gap between the percentage of students scoring very high (1 is the "highest" score) in the different states of Germany. When students score well on the exam, it reflects directly on their teachers, and, in turn, their state schooling system. Therefore, it may benefit some German states to administer a slightly easier Abitur to their students, in order to bolster their image in the view of the country. ("Abitur lottery sparks tougher exam debate" 2015)

German students taking the Abitur

Test taking pressureIn the past, the Abitur was an even more "high stakes exam" for German students -- one that could cause real devastation as a result of not taking or passing the exam at the end of Gymnasium. The most exaggerated case is the young man who shot several people in Erfurt, Germany in 2002 because he was expelled from school before taking his Abitur, thus negating his career possibilities. ("How a school shooting" 2017) Since that time, Germany has changed their laws to allow students to apply for placements at vocational schools without an Abitur. 

How Gymnasium teachers benefit
With such a high-stakes exam looming for German students, it is surprising to see that teachers still enjoy a great deal of freedom as they teach subjects that will be included in the Abitur. German schools generally do not require teachers to adhere to as strict a curriculum as they do in the United States, so teachers who have taught in both countries find that they do far less "teaching to the test" in German than they do in the United States. ("Why you should teach" 2014) You see, for German teachers, their class is just part of the greater picture, equipping students to score well on the Abitur, rather than a "means to an end" in itself, with a district-wide high stakes test at the end of their specific class.

Shortened preparation time not a factor
Another "stressor" that had been cited by German students and their parents has been that in recent years, the time students spend in Gymnasium has recently been shortened by a year. (There used to be a 13th grade in most schools.) Students and their parents were afraid that their Abitur-related stress would be heightened by this change, but recent students have shown this not to be the case. (Minkley, Rest, Terstegen, Kirchner, Wolf, 2013)

The crux of the difference between the two systems These are just some of the differences between the high-stakes tests administered by the United States and German government to their college-bound students. Since fewer German students go to what Americans would consider a "traditional college," fewer of them take their one, large college readiness exam. And since the German Gymnasium students' preparation has taken place since fifth grade, there seems to be considerably less stress associated with taking this test.


References
Abitur lottery sparks tougher exam debate (2015, June 10) Retrieved from https://www.thelocal.de/20150610/abitur-germany-education-standards-quality

Minkley, N., Rest, M., Tergersten, S., Kirchner, W.H., Wolf, O.T. (2013) Mehr Stress durch G8? Akute und chronische Stressbelastung von Abiturienten mit regulärer und verkürzter Gymnasialzeit. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nina_Minkley/publication/283638318_Mehr_Stress_durch_G8_Akute_und_chronische_Stressbelastung_von_Abiturienten_mit_regularer_und_verkurzter_Gymnasialzeit/links/575e711408ae9a9c955c2472.pdf

Svab, P. (2013, November 22) State Education Chancellor Defends Teacher and School Evaluations. Retrieved from http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/367782-state-education-commissioner-defends-teacher-and-school-evaluations/

Students Go To Extreme Measures to Get Higher Test Scores. (2013, November 17) Retrieved from http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/11/17/students-go-to-extreme-measures-to-get-higher-test-scores/


Trines, S. (2016, November 8) Education in Germany. Retrieved from http://wenr.wes.org/2016/11/education-in-germany

Why you should teach English in Germany (2014, April 14) Retrieved from https://www.thelocal.de/20140414/why-you-should-become-an-english-teacher-in-germany

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016) College Enrollment and Work Activity of 2016 Graduates. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.nr0.htm

Diagram of the German education system retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/German_School_System.png

Photograph of students taking the Abitur retrieved from https://www.thelocal.de/userdata/images/1433933587_abitur%20exam.jpg

Photograph of students taking the SAT retrieved from http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55706c30eab8eac25fc67cd0-1190-625/the-best-piece-of-advice-for-taking-the-sat-is-shockingly-simple.jpg

TEACH-NOW M5U5A1: Incorporating Multicultural Perspectives in a Lesson Plan

Incorporating multiculturalism in an English Language Arts classroom is not a one-time lesson about immigration, or simply the incorporation of a reading of Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Multiculturalism has a place in everyday lessons in every middle school.

Lessons in a English Language Arts curriculum can reflect the diversity of our community, region, country, and world throughout the school year in several ways:

1. Going beyond the language. When a grammar textbook details the proper way to form a sentence and conjugate a verb, some students may find that the language spoken by their parents or others in their community doesn't map with what the textbook says. This is an important moment for a conversation about dialects. The version of English taught in the textbook is considered by linguists to be the "Language of Opportunity" in our country (and many other countries), but that may not be the version of English spoken at the students' dinner table. Acknowledging this with students helps bridge a potential cultural divide.

2. Including texts beyond the ordinary. Every year, a new crop of young adult novels come out, many by people of color, describing their experiences. It's important not to always fall back on the same set of books in the storeroom, and keep options open. If there is a new book by a writer of color, one that is capturing the imagination of middle school students, it may be time to set "Bridge to Terabithia" aside for the time being, and pivot the lesson plan to include this new book.

3. Invite other languages into the classroom. English Language Arts doesn't always need to be about English. The literature and languages of other cultures can be a part of lessons in many valuable ways. For example, when a character in a book decides to speak Spanish instead of English when she's interacting with a new friend, what does that say about the role language has in her life, and our lives? 

4. Invite other countries into the classroom. There is no restriction that says that poetry, articles, and books that are part of an English Language Classroom must have originated in the English language. So many good books exist in translation, and can be an important way to bring voices from other countries and cultures into the discussion with students. Students can draw comparisons and contrasts with the stories written in other languages, as that literature may provide a better lens through which to view another culture.

Why is this important?
It is important to introduce students to this kind of multicultural content and multiple perspectives in the curriculum for two reasons. 

First, some of the students themselves may be from another culture. Acknowledging that difference by including writers from their culture may go a long way toward engaging those learners. Furthermore, even if a piece of literature in the curriculum does not represent the culture of English Language Learners in the classroom, it may be helpful for them to see that not all writing originates from a Eurocentric, white perspective. Including a writer from Africa, for example, discussing her problems in attending a mostly-white college may resonate with an Asian student who feels similarly isolated in her school.

Second, even if a classroom is relatively homogeneous, representing students of one color, teaching them to go deep and empathize with characters from other cultures -- to determine their differences and similarities, and see the kind of situations they encounter can go a long way toward fostering empathy, an important 21st century skill.

How to assess whether it is working
On the surface, it may be somewhat difficult to determine whether a student is developing cultural competence in the classroom. It may be possible, though, through various forms of formative assessment, to see a change in a student's perspective. To that end, it may make sense to give a cultural competence "pre-test" at the beginning of the year. Ask students to discuss what literature they know from other cultures, and, more importantly, what they think they may learn from studying literature from cultures that may be quite different from their own.

This conversation can continue throughout the year, with additional formative assessments -- even something as simple as asking students to write three words on a whiteboard and hold it up as they answer the question: "Why is it important to read books by writers outside the United States?"

Finally, at the end of the year, the teacher can perform a type of "post-mortem" with a final assessment, asking students to give feedback on the multicultural lessons they learned throughout the year. If students demonstrate they have developed cultural competence in addition to what they demonstrated at the beginning of the year, then the teacher is on the right track. If the needle hasn't moved, it may be time to double down on multicultural curriculum, and touch base with other teachers who have mastered the art of including it in the English Language Arts classroom.

References

Garcia, E.K, "Multicultural Education in Your Classroom" Teachhub.com. Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/multicultural-education-your-classroom 

Inflatable globe image retrieved from https://cdn-rainbowresource.netdna-ssl.com/products/024310.jpg