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

Rounding to the Nearest Ten and Hundred

This question from a PARCC math practice assessment requires students to understand rounding.

To round to the nearest ten, underline the place you are rounding to, look to the right, ten and above, give it a shove, four or below, go down low! I once spent an entire hour with an elementary class comprised of pretty sharp kids and an abundance of enthusiasm who could not explain what the rounding chant really meant.

There are imprecise elements to this rounding chant, as well as this question found on the PARCC practice math assessment.  In the PARCC questions we are asked to round three numbers to the nearest ten.  Fair enough and likely matched to the discourse on rounding we hear, consistently, about rounding to the nearest ten or tens place…are we not really and literally choosing a next higher, or lower, multiple of ten?  And should we use this precise language when teaching children about rounding numbers to the closest whole number multiple of 10 or100…

Rounding on a number line is a common practice in elementary math class.  If we listen closely, we can hear teachers telling students to round up, or down, to the next ten, hundred, thousand, and so on ( although we mean to the next multiple of ten, hundred…) using a horizontal number line.  In an unabashed plug for Engage NY, I just love that rounding is introduced and practiced using a vertical number line. Engage NY Module 3, Lessons 12 – 14 use the language of place value to help students understand rounding.  Instead of saying 73, we will say 7 tens and 3 ones to understand the location of 73 on a number line having 70 and 80 as endpoints.

Illustrative Mathematics has several content rich tasks  to  support student learning of the 3rd grade math standard for rounding numbers. Click on the links below for the tasks!

3.NBT Rounding to 50 or 500

3.NBT Rounding to the Nearest Ten and Hundred

3.NBT, 4.NBT Rounding to the Nearest 100 and 1000

3.NBT.A.1. Use place value understanding to round whole numbers to the nearest 10 or 100.

Reading Closely and Writing to Text

Teachers, and students, are now familiar with reading closely and writing to text.  We need to be…in many classrooms across the country, these skills and strategies are the basis for the reading, writing, listening and speaking that is happening in our classrooms.  Are your students prepared to navigate a new testing environment and show they can read closely and write to texts? Are your students ready to take the new PARCC performance and end of year assessments in the not so far away months or March and April? A close reading of the ELA Practice Test for 3rd grade may leave you wondering…

Achieve the Core has a comprehensive set of mini assessments for the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards that can help students approach the new tests with confidence. One 3rd grade mini assessment includes a 22 page excerpt from the book, Because of Winn-Dixie, with seven text-dependent questions, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS. There are mini assessments for grades K-8, and here are a few for 3rd grade…

 Grade 3 fiction/literary Mini-assessment for Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco

  Grade 3 nonfiction Mini-assessment for “Cactus Jam” by Ruth J. Luhrs

  Grade 3 fiction/literary Mini-assessment for “The Fisherman and His Wife” by Lucy Crane