Making Test Prep More Interactive

Our state tests are 5 days away - and needless to say we are under pressure to get the students ready to pass those tests.  4th grade is the first year the students are asked to complete written responses, so that is an additional challenge to prepare them for.   I am linking up with I'm Lovin' Lit for Thursday Throw Down to share how I made our preparation a bit more interactive.



I started by giving them a copy of the rubric that came in the test prep materials for a constructed response.

We read it together and made sure they understood what it meant.  Then I put the students into groups and gave them sample pieces of student work that were included in the test prep material as well.

The original items had scores at the bottom along with rationale.  I cut those off before I handed them out.  Then I asked the students to work together to grade each of these items.

They voted as a group to rank each one, and wrote their scores and rationale on the paper.

We then discussed the rankings as a group, and I showed them the original scores.  They were much harsher than our state graders!  After this process, they wrote their own responses, and worked together to improve them.  I really think this will help them as they take their tests next week.

Testing Craziness

My poor kiddos have been subject to a crazy amount of tests in the past two weeks.  Last week we had MAPS testing as well as our common assessment pre-tests.  Our district has common assessments that we use before and after teaching a unit.  Our upcoming unit is on fractions. 

I don't know about you, but sometimes I get the craziest of answers from my kiddos!  Here are a few of the highlights:

I have no idea where this student got the idea of ice cream from the given question, but she sure knows how to write her own problem when she doesn't know the answer!

Food was a common theme - as they all wanted to add food to the number line problem.  This student was into pizza.

This kiddo decided, when in doubt, just copy the question - that has to be worth at least 1/2 a point right? LOL!

At least I figured out where the pizza came from!

I am usually really good at figuring out what to do with student errors and misconceptions, but in this case I am almost at a loss.  I know this is just a pre-test, but almost all of my students didn't even read the problem (or couldn't understand what it was asking).

Any suggestions for reading test questions and following directions?