Module Seven Reflection

Rachel Butler
READ 5572

One important concept in High Stakes testing is that the preparation for such testing stops the process of teaching. In the text it reinforces the concern of the regular curriculum being brought to a halt to prepare for a test that the students have heard about most of the year. Curriculum are presently being modified to ensure that coverage of the "test material" is achieved, thus omitting vital information that would be useful for later testing.
Another vital practice is the teaching of strategies necessary for student preparedness. Strategy instruction could and should be taught all year and demonstrated by the teacher. This text also supports the philosophy that students need more independent practice time. Many of the times we "hit the areas" that need to be reviewed and without giving the students time to practice and respond, we "move on" to the next required area. Many of our students do not have the opportunity to absorb enough information from the presented text to have questions about them.
I thought another interesting practice was teaching a variety of testing formats. A student can know a question and the correct answer, but when presented with the challenge of choosing the correct answer from four, three of which are probably closely related, they enter into a new way of thinking. And if they have not had exposure to these types of tests or assessments, they will feel defeated before they begin.
In my classroom, I use auditory prompts to cover Bloom's taxonomy. In reading a variety of textbooks, I have realized that last year, in my first year of teaching, I used Q & A that primarily dealt with the knowledge domain. I hadn't even given them a chance to analyze or apply the information presented to other situations in their lives. Even though my students are assessed by portfolio, I have created auditory prompts for each level of taxonomy to get them to think outside the box. Most testing requires a deeper level of thinking, and this needs to be modeled in every classroom, even Special Education.
Most of the strategies for this module are primarily for sighted children; however, I use the brainstorm technique almost every day. While performing a book walk, and discussing what the book might be about, I ask them what they currently know about the subject and this leads to a grand conversation.
I really like to sketch to stretch and have personally used it to help me remember a sequence of steps or patterns. The visual box example is similar to how I do our vocabulary quizzes. They are given the word, a definition of the word without using the word itself, and an example they can give me of the word. An example of this last week for our word "homeless" All five of our spelling words ended in "less" meaning without. The definition I provided for them was "not having a place to live", not "without a home". At the end of the week and after multiple discussions about the words, they have to create a sentence with the word in relation to something they had previously experienced. My student for the word homeless, had heard a dog barking outside his home and his family had told him that it was a "stray dog". He then inquired what a "stray dog" was and they continued to explain that the dog wandered around and didn't really belong to anyone. My student then told his family that the dog was homeless. This was very exciting to me for him to use the application process to connect the word to a real life situation. This would be my modified version of the text box.