Happy New Year, everyone! In an effort to incorporate technology into our intervention staff developments, and as a way to give everyone a chance to reflect and share their thoughts, we have initiated this blog. We will post questions after each intervention meeting that are intended to give you an opportunity to reflect, plan, and share ideas you have about implementing the ideas we discuss in our staff developments.
In thinking back to our December 10 meeting, we discussed the notion of looking at standardized tests as a genre and how that might benefit us as well as our students. We'd like you to answer the following questions and as you have time, read and respond to others' posts as well:
1. What is something that struck you from our analysis of the TAKS test as a genre?
2. How has this (or will this) affect your teaching?
In preparation for our January 21 meeting, please answer the following:
1. How do the cognitive strategies (monitoring for meaning, determining importance, drawing inferences, questioning, mental images, summarizing, synthesizing) fit with preparing students for standardized tests?
Reminder: Our next meeting is at 8:00 on January 21 at SFMS. In preparation for that meeting, please read pages 41-109 of Put Thinking to the Test. For those of you who have not yet received your book, they are coming!
Margaret Hale
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We are off and running! Because so much of the PTT reminds our campus of the Comprehension Tool Kit and other familiar cognitive strategy resources, we have created a weekly plan to cover specific objectives leading up to the TAKS test. See below:
ReplyDeleteWeek 1-Inner Conversation/Tracking Thinking Strategies
Week 2-Notice When You Lose Your Way
Week 3-What Do We Notice About Testing Format/What Makes a Test a Test?
Week 4-QAR/Questioning Strategies: Right There, Author and Me, Think and Search, On My Own
Week 5-Unfamiliar Words-Testing Vocabulary/Context Clues/Question Stems
Week 6-Testing Procedures/Independent Decision Making About Test Choices/Determining Impt.
Week 7-Testing Stamina and Fix-Up Strategies
"Put Thinking to the Test" is a resource needed for all teachers. We plan to use this instructional approach as a "bridge" to the testing format throughout the school year. It is a great way for our students to "put their own thinking to the test." Thanks for this resource and the training. With Appreciation-Buffalo Creek Intervention Specialists
Great! It sounds like you all have really taken off with the ideas suggested in PTT!
ReplyDeleteAre you having your students go through the TAKS test to study it as a genre, too?
Thanks for posting!
Margaret
We think that cognitive strategies help students to construct meaning as they read. At the same time it helps teachers to keep track of student's learning so we know for sure what's working for them and what's not. It is a great source for lessons, with interesting contents. Students learn to use these strategies on their own across a variety of texts, topics and subject areas. We feel like this training is very beneficial and helps us to help our teachers. The Hollibrook Intervention Specialists.
ReplyDeleteTeaching the genre of test taking also reminded me of Steph Harvey. She has a section specifically dedicated to that in her Toolkit. I also agree that using the Toolkit lessons helps you to cover all of the cognitive strategies with your students.
ReplyDeleteI feel that if we can get students to do these strategies on their own when they read, it will be much easier for them to select the right answer on a multiple choice test. By undertanding the cognitive strategies and doing this naturally as good readers, it will be so much easier to find the correct answer choice on TAKS.
I enjoyed today's training. Teaching the "language of the test" will be most helpful with my ELL's . The inferencing seems to be the most difficult part of test -taking for them since they look mostly for concrete examples in the text. I will teach them the that certain "cue" words on test questions will let them know that now they need to do some inferencing.
ReplyDeleteI think these intervention meetings are so informative. I like writing the questions before reading, during, and after the reading and then comparing the students'questions to the test questions or my own questions. I work with a student who is very smart but has difficulty in the writing and spelling areas. I had a newspaper article that was about dog fighting and how our Houston district attorney was going to target these dog fighters and those people who treat pets inhumanely. Immediately he wanted to know how the city was going to catch these people. So we wrote his question together which takes time with him. After we wrote, he said "Come on - let's read -I want to find out what the DA is going to do about catching these bad guys!" After the reading was fun too, because he had a chance to reflect and talk about all the things the DA could do to stop the dog fighting.
ReplyDeletePam Johnson