Much ado about nothing: one teacher’s perspective on PARCC

Colorado teachers can breathe a sigh of relief as initial apprehension gives way to understanding the new PARCC English Language Arts and Math tests, and align instruction and learning for PARCC 2016.

My students have had a fantastic year.  Our writing is truly remarkable, growth in reading comprehension and enjoyment is evident, and math….math is off the charts.  We love math…there are days when the kids would keep doing math right on through lunch if I would let them. And yet, as we got to know PARCC through the online practice tests provided by Pearson, I had some not so wonderful thoughts about what the makers of the test would be asking 8 and 9 year old kiddos to do. The reality is my students were prepared and actually enjoyed taking the tests.  As an educator, I could not have been more proud of my students, or certain of my standards based teaching.

Teaching is the one element in the teaching and learning cycle that we teachers have the most control over.  Criticism of the standards as federal overreach coupled with parental concern about data privacy, and teacher concern over loss of instructional time played a large part in the PARCC pushback and anti-testing movement this year.  Teachers have no control over this, but we do have complete control over teaching our new Colorado Academic Standards.

In the past, as testing windows approached, teachers around the state would check off the standards in the CSAP frameworks documents taking stock of which standards had been “covered” and which we still needed to cover.  With our new standards, and standards based teaching, my colleagues and I felt no need for this checklist teaching.

 Instead, we reviewed the PARCC-provided documents that outlined which standards would be addressed in both the midyear Performance Based Assessment (PBA) and the End of Year assessment (EOY). While not a super fun activity, reading these documents confirmed that good standards based, intentional instruction would be in complete alignment with the test.

Overall, the new standards require teachers to teach deeper and with more intentionality.  For example, the new math standards require a deeper level of instruction that is aligned with a focus on conceptual learning before procedural work. The application of deeper learning to real world situations has paid off as students show the relevance of their learning. When one of my parents asked her student how the PARCC math test went, he said, “We knew everything that was on the test.”  It’s important to note that he did not go on to say it was easy. It was not. One hour and 15 minutes for 11 questions tells you something about the rigor of this test.

Top students did not finish.  Formatting is an issue and there are many glitches for the techies to smooth out. As we wrap up our Math PARCC tests this week, students are reporting they liked the test, and already asking about the second round in May.

I hope teachers will use our understanding of the test to align our instruction, learning targets, and success criteria to better match the way students will show their learning, achievement, and growth.  In hindsight, I might need to admit it was the same technology that the kids loved that was a bit intimidating for teachers.  We teachers can embrace this and use the tools we already have to transform our reading and writing processes to align with the online writing we saw in PARCC.

The fear of the unknown fueled much of the uncertainty around PARCC. The purpose of PARCC has taken on a conflated meaning, blurring its purpose, to track learning over time, with the day to day of formative assessment.   Teacher attitudes toward learning and how we present our professional selves to students and our communities can support standards based instruction.

Yes, PARCC can get better. Aside from some tech bumps, what I saw was a test aligned to the standards we teach, and students who had incredibly positive and engaging interactions with the tests.  Our students were prepared, excited, and, a true barometer of how standards based teaching and learning is going in our classrooms.

Published in the  Denver Post on-line op-ed guest commentary March 18, 2015

http://www.denverpost.com/guestcommentary/ci_27736407/guest-commentary-much-ado-about-nothing-one-teachers

No…Standardized Tests do not Test Everything you do for Kids

The anti-testing movement continues to pick up momentum as teachers get on the  “the test does not test my relationship with students” bandwagon.  I  would caution teachers who  are buying into this accusation that they are contributing to the uncertainty and public distrust of standardized tests.  True, relationship building and support for students are not measured directly on annual standardized academic tests.   But we must not make the  argument that the tests are bad because our teaching and nurturing behaviors are not factored into a standardized test.

Lately, I have notice a movement on Facebook called #MoreThanAScoreCO…The messaging from teachers is that their students are more than a score.  Teachers on the site pose with photos of themselves using signs to declare what they do for children that is above and beyond academic teaching.  Here are a few:

FreeOurStudents.org invites the public and educators to take a stand against excessive standardized testing and join others at the “Our Students are More Than a Score” Rally at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on March 25 to support “time to teach and time to learn” in Colorado classrooms.  The posted signs send the message that the nurturing aspect of teaching can not be tested.  Using this as an argument against standardized testing just isn’t strong enough for me.  Each of these teacher’s statements is a factor of great teaching.  Hattie’s research on visible learning confirms the hypothesis that teacher influence has a measurable effect on student achievement.  These great teachers will have an impact on student performance on the test. I actually think these teachers should go further to acknowledge their impact on student test scores.

The second message in a video campaign from FreeOurStudents.org is the time for test prep that takes time away from teaching, the uselessness of the test scores, the time actual testing takes from teaching, and the stress put upon students during tests.

I am a third grade teacher who has intentionally taught my standards all year with engaging learning activities and research based, or proven, instructional methods.  As our testing window neared, my students and I felt completely prepared for the upcoming computerized tests that would cover about 75% of the entire set of third grade Colorado Academic Standards.  We did not lose hours or weeks to “test prep” and we did use the Pearson provided tutorials and practice tests to familiarize ourselves with the format and tools that would be available on the test. On test days, student interaction with the tests seemed a positive experience for my students.

The current pulse on education and testing is important.  There is too much testing, therefore, we need to use the best test, and let go of other tests that are not aligned with standards.  We have legislated our way to too much testing with No Child Left Behind at a national level, and with our own Colorado READ act at the state level.  Add to our federal and state level testing the  various district level testing, and yes, this  is a disaster.  The issue must be too much testing, not that we are testing teacher qualities that cannot be measured.  If anything, go to a rally, but ask for less testing, not tests to measure nurturing teachers.

Third Grade ELA PARCC…Rookie Reflections!

The third grade English Language Arts PARCC  on-line assessment is over for this year. For the most part, after a shocking first day, it was better than expected.  We knew months ago students would have three tests; the literary analysis, the research simulation, and the narrative, all of which were combined reading and writing tasks.

As teachers, we clued in quickly to some striking nuances and rallied.  For example who would tell third grade kiddos to write an essay in a 1 inch by 6 inch text box…not us, but, yes this did result in more than a few one sentence essays. And, this strange little disconnect from our classroom instruction and practice prompted me to wonder how best to address this problem. Wonderings are just a wonderful thing…turns out, I had already built a writing prompt with a video link, that provided kiddos with a regular sized word doc, with many of the same tools, and the added capability for students to submit their writing to the teacher on-line, and for the teacher to return the writing, with comments, back to the student. This is is all possible through our district’s Discovery Education, and a super easy to use tool called the Writing Prompt Builder…

This is an example of a writing prompt our 4th grade team used for our yearlong writing prompt project in 2012.

Student could watch the link, write, and submit their work directly to their teacher for feedback and rubric notes.

This is an example of a writing prompt the PEARSON team put together for millions of dollars and is using in the current  PARCC test to assess student achievement of the COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS…

So there you have it…the writing prompt and writing area from our friends at PEARSON, and a teacher created writing prompt complete with submit to teacher and teacher feedback capabilities.  This formative assessment is part of our day to day teaching and learning cycle… Again, the teacher created writing work was created in Discovery Education using the Writing Prompt Builder.  It takes maybe 10 minutes to build and assign.

I am happy to help and answer any questions my fellow teachers may have, and to PEARSON, I say, do better.

Where are those test tools I keep hearing about…oh, in the drop down under the guest head icon…of course.

It is February and my students have had a fantastic year.  Our writing is truly remarkable, growth in reading comprehension and enjoyment is evident, and math….math is off the charts.  We love math…there are days when the kids would keep doing math right on through lunch if I would let them.  We just finished our unit test for area and as I reflected on the level of understanding required on the test, I was not surprised at the outstanding results.  As each student went to work comparing their work to the answer document, I watched in utter awe at how my students, without me prompting, went right to work trying to find their  errors, recalculating, refiguring, rethinking…and persevering in an  effort to arrive at the correct answer.  And this idea of arriving at the correct answer is  at the center of our math learning and teaching in our class.  As our inevitable scheduled days for PARCC testing get nearer, I have had some not so wonderful thoughts about  what the makers of this test are asking 8 and 9 year old kids to do.  And how little knowledge of my student’s effort I will ever know as a result of this test because I am strictly forbidden to look at any of  the test problems and questions while a student is taking the test.  How counterintuitive, because I  looked at my student’s work on their area tests, and I can tell you who can find the area of a composite rectangle such as these…

And I can tell you who had trouble with  finding an unknown side length, who made errors adding up the area of their rectangles, who could find the  unknown side length…and so on, because I  did look at their work…but  I digress.

PARCC is a computerized test my students will be taking in 7 school days from today.  Which means teacher trainings on the administration of the PARCC test have come and  gone.  At our training it was shared that we will want to give the students access to the PARCC practice items and tools tutorials so that our students will be able to navigate their way through the testing with ease and confidence.  The  snapshot from the test administration manual below says more about this…

First…I  am thankful that the for profit company, PEARSON, has provided sample items, practice tests, and tutorials to familiarize student with the computer-based testing tools and  processes.  At our training, I kept hearing that word “tools” and  I admit that I  have spent more than a little bit   of time looking online over and over at the practice tests, sample items and tutorials for these “tools.”  I have to also admit, at this point in the training, I am feeling just a little inept.  Why can’t I find those tools I keep hearing about?  I  finally found the tools.  I have got to admit, I  felt just a little bit  thrilled that I  had found the tools, just a bit excited, I tried them out and  I even thought, ok…I can really  get behind these tools…these tools are kind of awesome and kids are going to want to use  them (and overuse them)!  As a service to my fellow friends and teachers, I thought I would share…check out the  snapshot below…of course, the tools are right under the guest head in the drop down menu…there you have it…and I wish  my fellow teachers happy tutorial tutoring, and practice item practicing in the next seven days!

CCIRA Conference on Reading 2015… Reflections and Noticings….

MY TOP TEN TAKE AWAYS FROM THE 2015 CCIRA CONFERENCE

• Mentor texts can be trade-books or kid writing…save your kid writing!
• Make good choices…choose the invited presenters for your first session of each day
• Renew my CCIRA membership…support the Colorado Council of the International Reading Association
• Get back to my Reading Teacher roots…did I somehow forget that I am a reading teacher?
• POETRY
• Real Writing…” I wouldn’t want to write from the bottom of my shoes either “…Georgia Heard
• Get a room and share it with friends
• Laughing and talking with friends till midnight is good for  the soul
• Kids need to read more and read better
• Write about our lives…teach kids that their lives and their stories matter…write our stories together

The Colorado Council of the International Reading Association, CCIRA, puts on the best regional conference on reading.  Invited speakers are renowned experts and practitioners of literacy learning.  Many continue to teach in the  classroom while writing great books and presenting at great conferences.   I always come away from this conference with a renewed sense  of why I teach, and a commitment to  balance.

CCSS-Aligned English Language Arts Task Sets

PARCC partnered with the Institute for Learning to create sample classroom-based tasks that demonstrate how performance-based PARCC-like tasks can be used for instruction.  These task sets are great for any teacher who is working with students on reading and writing about complex texts.

• ​Grade 3   — Classroom Task Set: Engaging With Literature
• Grade 6   — Classroom Task Set: Literature Analysis
• Grade 10 — Classroom Task Set: Research Simulation

I suggest using the Guided Lessons with a short story, perhaps one of the short stories, or excerpts, from the mini assessment bank at Achieve the Core…

The set of tasks for a short story or poem are:

• Purpose and Comprehension
• Vocabulary Meaning
• Vocabulary, Literal and Non-Literal
• Deepen Comprehension, Actions of a Character
• Deepen Comprehension, Central Message

The links above include step by step lessons and links to graphic organizers to go with the lessons!  I have just recently noticed this set of guided lessons on the PARCC website.  Looking forward, these lessons might be  a good framework for classroom reading and writing instruction all year, not just in the weeks prior to the new PARCC tests…

I learned my standards but I don’t know how to show my answers in the PARCC “test environment”

I have just attempted to show my answers, and show my  work, on a practice PARCC test.  What a frustrating experience.  First, and super important to mention, I have absolutely no qualms with the questions, the standards being tested, the actual content.  Many are of a surprisingly  low level…basic, basic, basic math.  The challenges are in the skills needed to ” show your work ” using an equation editor.  Let’s look at this a bit closer.

“You should use this box the same way you use a pencil and paper to write your math answer.”

For one of the problems, I added 18 + 40+ 32 +25…clearly this can be added together quickly and efficiently using mental math.  Mental math is a big part of our standards.  Mental math is a strategy we spend a part of our math lesson on daily. And yet, using a cursor, number pad and the available math  symbols, I am asked to show my work and enter my answer and work in the space provided…show  how  I arrived at 115. If I am a student, and my teacher is always telling me to show my work, this is confusing.  The “work” is adding the 8 and 2, adding all the tens, adding the extra five…etc.  I was able to show my plan, my addition sentence…but NOT my work.  The rubric for this question reveals the answer to this conundrum.  The PARCC assessment is not  interested in your work, your  method, the details on how you computed…rather PARCC wants to know that you computed 115, and had a “modeling component”…see rubric below.

Which is why I wonder, will my kids come away saying, “Mrs. Sutton, I knew the answers… I worked it out on my scratch paper… I just didn’t know how to show  my work.”  Ahhh, perhaps I can teach kids to include their modeling component, instead of “showing their work” in the four weeks we have until the tests!

Books

Testing students every year on reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school has been the law of the land since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2001.  In a January 22 interview on NPR, Anya Kamenetz answers a few questions about her new book.  The author clarifies the history and problems with standardized testing, and poses several alternatives to the current testing requirements of NCLB. Anya Kamenetz writes from the dual perspectives of journalist and parent.  Check out the reviews on Amazon for insight into educational testing history and forward thinking alternatives to  testing that  this book shines a light on.

Mentor Texts for Teaching Writing…

My friend and colleague wants me to work on listing the picture books I use to teach writing… I don’t want to do it I tell her.  I tell her the books are all in my head.  It’s true…I’ll be driving to work and suddenly find myself putting the pieces together for a fantastic lesson with an amazing picture book that is absolutely perfect.  Arriving at the classroom I sidestep every thing else I had planned to do to find the book, write the lesson and, then and only then, return to my originally scheduled day.  If I had a list, I can assure you I would not know the whereabouts of the list on a regular basis.  But, I like my friend and I’m going to make some book lists…

Books about sentences

The punctuation marks in Mr. Wright’s class take a vacation.  Students experience how difficult reading is without punctuation as they read postcards from the vacationing punctuation friends.

In this companion book to Punctuation Takes a Vacation, titled Nouns and Verbs Have a Field Day, Mr.Wright’s class is having a field day and the nouns and verbs must learn to work together as a team to be successful at the games.

Books to teach story plot with emphasis on rising and falling action

In this story, the main character is one step away from disaster several times which provides a good context for analyzing events as main events and events that function to ” move the story along.”  We created a large line plot to show rising action and falling action.  Also a great book to teach the difference between retell and summarizing by using only the main events to summarize!

To be continued…on another level.  I think the idea of using a mentor text to teach writing is being confused, by me, with using the text we are reading as a springboard for our opinion, explanatory and narrative writing.

Crosswalk for PARCC PBA and Tenmarks Lessons!

List of Tenmarks Lessons aligned with the ” 75 % ” standards on the PARCC mid year PBA