Atrocities of Standardized Testing & 10 Ways of Getting the Most Out of Your Tests

If your school is like the ones I have taught at in the past, the first two things that we do are ask students their names and administer a barrage of standardized tests. I will be blunt here: assessments, as they are currently, are a rat race of schools rushing towards the top of the educational leaderboards. Many of them serve no purpose outside of ranking students, teachers, and the school as entities. However, there are some benefits that could be gained from a well designed and delivered assessment, which is a topic for today.

How much testing is done?

First, an real world example may provide a useful perspective of how much testing is done. In previous schools that I taught, we would dedicate the first week towards multiple tests such as F&P, MAP, Pre-Assessments for all classes, and some diagnostic tests on guided programs such as iReady or Khan Academy. Furthermore, we would do this three times a year in the Fall, Winter, and Spring to measure “growth” of students throughout this time. Not to mention that students are subjected to further testing in the spring with state tests and standardized content finals if they are in higher level classes in their middle school years. I have also given students assessments at the end of every quarter, adding another four days of instruction towards the total. If I had to give an equivalence of days, I would say roughly 15 to 20 days in the school year are dedicated towards testing; or roughly 120 to 160 hours.

The answer? In my experience a lot. And I will admit that I am on the extreme end of this, however from asking my other colleagues they mostly follow in a similar manner. Many of them delivering multiple standardized tests at the beginning, middle, and end of their school year. So before we begin going into some further details, know this: students are tested a ton through out the school year.

Types of testing: Standardized and Content Testing

Before I go into more opinions on testing, I would like to distinguish two types of testing: standardized testing and content testing. Standardized tests are tests created in order to standardized scores and make them consistent when grading. Standardized tests are created with the purpose and grading to create normal distributions to rank students. These tests include state exams, iReady diagnostic tests, and the infamous MAP exam. Contest tests are tests created by a teacher and covers content from the course students are currently in. For instance, if students cover solving equations in Unit 1 of an Algebra class, then the Unit 1 Test would be a content test over solving equations.

Both, when used properly, at great at helping student success of retaining information and gathering information from students to help support their learning. Sadly they mostly are not, as I will explain later.

My own opinions on testing.

There is a ton to talk about here and how we can use testing meaningfully in our classrooms. However, before we get there I would like to share my own general opinions on testing. Testing is a huge part of schooling, as indicated by the amount of time spent on it. Therefore, we need to weigh out the benefits and costs of testing at schools, which I will discuss below.

1. All testing can be useful when used with intention

Though I came off strongly on the negatives, testing is a useful tool to help guide student learning, especially when we find out this information at the beginning of the year. We can group students into sections and work on specific skills that can benefit them as they progress into our course. For example, during my pre-assessment for my Algebra class I will provide a “equation solving” pre-assessment where I test students on their ability to solve one-step, two-step and multi-step equations. This gives me information on if I need to help specific students begin gaining the base level skills to be able to engage with course content.

Testing can also be useful after a unit is completed or a cumulative test of knowledge at the end of the unit. These tests help students retain memory over the longer term due to the testing effect, and can help identify gaps in student learning that can be overcame through tutoring or smaller group sections.

Lastly, testing can be helpful when we want to know how students are doing comparatively to others. For instance, if a student scores poorly on a test and indicates they are farther behind, we can dedicate more time and resources getting that student caught up. Furthermore, we can implement more classroom strategies to help that student improve.

2. We test way too much, and students know it

As I stated earlier, I have spent 15 to 20 instructional days or 120 to 160 hours dedicated to student testing. I am not advocating constant instructional and micromanagement of student time, but that is an enormous amount of days that could be used towards teaching students more and even involving them into a meaningful project or topic.

Furthermore, the students know that we test them too much! Every student that I have had in the past constantly complains about how many tests that they have to take throughout the school year, and it creates a dislike towards school. Many of them form testing anxiety, gain test fatigue, and are subjected to tests that we are really over emphasizing as I will explain.

3. Measuring “growth” through standardized testing is inaccurate

I completely stand by this that measuring growth through standardized testing is inaccurate. An example may be helpful here.

Imagine that you have just finished teaching your entire Algebra course to a group of students, and they have to take an upcoming end of year MAP exam. The MAP exam covers an entire variety of content in math including Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics. Some of the topics and ideas that you have taught in your course will be there, but students will most likely face a wide variety of topics that they have not seen in a long time. Also, if a student gets a problem wrong early on from a topic in Geometry that you did not cover this year, they are subjected to test adaptability and their score will suffer. Thus students are left to figuring out specific steps or using formulas that they have never seen or have not seen in a long time to solve these problems. Then, they are scored on this exam and expected to make “growth” with schools even making pass or fail decisions for students based on these scores.

Do you see the issue here? We are not measuring students knowledge of the content that they have just learned this previous school year, but their overall knowledge of everything about the content which is highly unrealistic. Forgetting information is incredibly common among all human beings. When I was in college, it would be absolutely unfair if every final I took was cumulative from every previous class that I took; so why should I expect 13 and 14 year old’s in my math class to do so?

4. The stakes of testing are much too high

Testing is considered the gold standard of student performance in schools. Many of your colleagues and administration will constantly talk about the outcome of standardized tests as if we are a sales force selling knife sets. This number will be shared to the families of the student as if they are another defining characteristic of the child, like their hair color. Many students will have their scores discussed by teachers and admin in order to determine if they should be passed or failed the grade, or put into honors or remedial courses. The stakes of scoring well on these exams are much to high for students, and yet we do not set them up for success by delivering exams that do not even cover majority of the content that they covered the past year.

5. This data is never used expect for looking at “growth”

I believe that this one is the most detrimental to the entire idea of testing. Students spend a vast amount of time taking these tests and teachers spend a vast amount of time preparing students for them. When I know a big standardized test is coming up for students, I spend at least a week preparing them for the exam by reviewing content. Yet, the results of these exams are never used in their full capacity. The first thing that 99% of instructors and administration do when students finish the exam, is pull a report on the percentiles of students and their average growth. Why? Because we are so invested in these tests as an indicator of student achievement, when in reality these tests don’t even measure the majority of the content that they covered that year!!!

Even worse, when students take state standardized tests, most schools do not receive the results of the tests until the next school year! In a state that I previously taught in, the state standardized tests results were not even used for determining if students passed or failed, but rather ranking schools on an arbitrary list called the state report card. There are other factors that go into this state report card, and I recommend you check it out for yourself (I would love to go into this more, but this isn’t the focus of this blog post.)

All of this is extremely disappointing, considering how helpful exams like this can be if we are not focusing on the idea of growth and ranking all of the time; more to come later.

5. Constant testing is detrimental to students

Testing is not a bad tool for student learning and should be used appropriately. However, constant testing is detrimental to students mental health and feelings towards education.

First let us begin with this perspective: teens are extremely stressed inviduals. This NPR article goes into detail, but quotes “A survey by the American Psychological Association found that nearly half of all teens — 45 percent — said they were stressed by school pressures.” Considering many students are constantly barraged with college readiness pressure and constant striving towards a college degree as the means of a stable living in our country, it is not a surprise that many of them are stressed by school. To assist with their suffering, schools deliver high stakes exams to students multiple times a year. Many students experience testing anxiety, making them perform worse on exams or gain testing fatigue from having to take multiple long exams. All of this is encouraging these students to become more stressed and begin to develop negative feelings towards school and learning.

So what is the verdict of testing?

Testing, as we use it currently in schools, is atrocious. We deliver tests to students multiple times a year and consume enormous amount of class time only to look at a single number that does not accurately represent student learning over the course of the year. Furthermore, we contribute towards students feelings of stress and anxiety as they begin to form negative experiences with school.

However, not all hope is lost. As I stated before, testing is useful and there are intentional ways that we can test students to support more positive outcomes.

How do we get the most out of our testing?

Now that all of the negative aspects of testing are covered, lets talk about how we can use testing positively and support students mental health.

1. Be intentional and have a reason to test

If you are going to give an exam or a test, make sure you have a reason to do so. In many cases some tests are required by your school or district, however you have some control over the tests you give within your own content classroom. When you have an upcoming test, make sure you have a reason as to why you are delivering that test before you even create it. Try:

• Only giving tests at the end of every unit

• If you give practice exams for upcoming standardized tests, use them sparingly and prepare students for them before hand

2. Let students know when the test is before time

This one seems very obvious, but allow students to know when the test is at least a week in advance. This will help students begin processing that they have an upcoming exam and begin preparing for it. Furthermore, this early processing can help alleviate some anxiety for students as they are more expectant of the upcoming exam.

• Having a calendar posted in class of upcoming important test dates

• Post on your bulletin board or white board the exact date of the exam

• At the beginning of every unit, have students write down the exam date in their notes

3. Include one or two review days prior to an exam

Students feel the best for an exam when they are properly prepared for it. Make sure to include in your year long calendar planning days to prepare for the exam with students. This will allow them to be able to feel confident when they actually take the exam and give time more in class time to study the material. Try:

• Playing review games with students

• Give a practice test with similar question types for students to complete together and go over in class with them

• Provide a quizlet or flash cards for students to study for the upcoming exam

4. When you give content tests, actually view the results in detail

Teaching is a ridiculously busy job, but if we give students a test over content that they spend at least an hour on, we should take the time to review the results in detail. Yes the overall class average is an important indicator of student learning, however knowing which questions that majority of students got incorrect is important too. This can be an indicator that content needs to be reviewed again or possibly the question was written poorly. Furthermore, sometimes there are testing errors where the question does not even have the correct answer. Therefore, we need to do better than just looking at the overall exam average. Try:

• Utilizing technology to help grade and break down scores by each problem type

• Check questions that most students missed for validity

5. Review most missed problems whole class

The problems that majority of students missed on exams can be a wonderful learning experience for students. Most likely, after the exam is complete, students will discuss with each other those problems and talk about “how hard it was” or ask each other “what did you get for #17” before they begin talking about their Fortnite wins from last night. Therefore, it is worth dedicating some class time reviewing these. Try:

• Spending a Do Now during class to review most missed problems on a previous exam

• Dedicate some discussion around what the exact misconception was for getting the problem incorrect

• Teach some test taking strategies on how to get to the correct answer

6. Allow students to correct their tests

This one is most likely the problematic one on this list, but hear me out. Education is hyper focused towards grades for the reason of ranking students. If it wasn’t, then class rank would not matter as much towards entrance in colleges. To me, what matters more than ranking students by their grades is allowing them to learn from their mistakes and reward students going back and fixing it. Therefore, I allow students to correct their exams and get some points back on their exams. It also gives them an opportunity to bring their grades up in the class and not suffer from a bad test. My tests corrections are not an easy process, I make students provide their work as detailed as possible and a three sentence minimum written explanation. However, they are able to take some independence to help themselves out. Try:

• Having a set classroom procedure for making up grades

• Setting high standards for test corrects and not accepting poor work submissions for test corrections

• Have set times during class for test corrections

7. Support students through tests and provide positive framing

As I stated earlier in this article, testing can be a draining and anxiety inducing process for a lot of students. Therefore, it is important to try to be as positive as possible and support students through taking these exams. Try:

• Reminding students that tests are not the end of their academic capabilities

• Reward students for showing courage and doing their best

• Have private conversations to encourage students who are showing a lot of stress around tests

• Students who are showing a ton of anxiety around tests refer to a counselor or school psychologists to be evaluated for testing anxiety to help them receive accommodations

• Provide a student with a break if needed during an exam such as getting water, putting their head down for a minute, or going to the restroom.

8. Give more low stakes quizzes through exit tickets

This one sounds counter intuitive due to my previous opinion that we test too much. However, low stakes exit tickets, in my opinion, are different that an hour long standardized tests. For one, they are much shorter in length and cover the content that students have just learned. Secondly, they are much lower stakes than an actually exam. Therefore, students have small bursts of practice on the material that you can grade for accuracy. Since these are much more frequent, student anxiety is usually very low around exit tickets and provide for a better indicator of student learning during that day. Try:

• Emphasis to students that these are low stakes and you want to evaluate their learning to help them grow

• Give students points for meeting expectations and showing effort on the exit ticket

• Frame the exit ticket as independent practice that gets graded

• Give an exit ticket everyday so students are expectant of it coming

• Provide students with exit ticket results as soon as possible

9. Analyze standardized test results to support student learning

Standardized tests provide some excellent information when we are not hyper focused on the growth and percentile columns. For instance, the MAP test breaks down students understanding of different topics, by standard, so teachers can plan out specific instructional activities to help students. Furthermore, we can ask students to come in for tutoring around these specific topics to help students catch up on the skills that they are missing. Try:

• Finding the standard break down for standardized tests when you receive results

• Plan interventions with students through tutoring sessions to build skills around content they need to catch up on

• Assign students homework on the specific concepts that they need to review

10. Act on test results

Saving the best for last, we simply need to act on the test results. By giving students tests and doing nothing with the results, we are only inducing their anxiety, continuing towards testing fatigue, and reinforcing their dislike of school. Therefore, we must act on test results and use them sparingly. Try:

• After a test, give back results as soon as you can

• Give students individual positive praises on tests when you can

• After the test is over, tell students when they should expect the grade back

I hope I have given you some more insight or ideas that you can utilize around testing in your classroom. Testing will always be a big part of schooling as long as grading and ranking are apart of schooling. Let me know some of your own testing idea, strategies, or opinions that you use.