Test Anxiety: A quick note.

Test anxiety interferes with students performance in a variety of ways. For one, if a student has a panic attack at the beginning of the exam they seriously shorten the amount of time they have to complete said exam. Test anxiety is is characterized by four factors: tension, worry, test-irrelevant thinking, and bodily reactions (Nitko, 2011). Any of these are enough to interfere with performance on an exam. Bodily reactions like headaches, stomach-aches, or palpitations can make it very difficult to pay attention and recall information. If a student is preoccupied with external factors, such as how their parents will react if they bring home a bad grade, they are not focusing on the exam and that effects performance as well.

To address test anxiety a teacher's best defense is a good offense. Inform the students what the assessment covers, how long they will have, what format it's in, etc. Avoid telling students that an assessment is going to be “hard, difficult, etc”. Provide sincere and comprehensive feedback throughout the year so a student can work on their weaknesses. Dr. Nitko suggests frequent testing to improve performance in anxious students (Nitko, 2011) and arranging assessment tasks from easiest to hardest. Avoid placation like “you'll do fine” and “don't worry”. Instead address the students concerns by answering questions about content and reinforcing the areas they're worried about. During the assessment, try not to walk around and look over students' shoulders. Talking and interrupting the student is obviously a bad idea. Convey a sense of confidence about the students' performance on the exam (Nitko, 2011). If YOU think that the students will not do well, YOU did not do your job in preparing them.

Nitko, A. J. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students. (6^th Ed). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. 

Assessments Assessments Assessments!

In order to best prepare students for an upcoming assessment an educator must provide certain minimum information in order for those students to be able to perform at their best. By using multiple instructional techniques that result in enhanced test performance, that also reflects an increased mastery of the content domain, the validity of the score interpretation is not compromised (Coleman-Ferrell, 2013). Effective methods that fit these requirements include

• The date and time when the assessment will be given.
• The conditions under which it will be given. For instance, how long they have to take it; whether the exam will be in-class or take-home; whether it will be a “speed test” exam, and so forth.
• The content areas the assessment covers.
• The emphasis or weighting (point value) of content areas to be included on the assessment.
• The types of performance the student will have to demonstrate (the kinds of items on the test, the degree to which memory will be required.)
• The way the assessment will be scored and graded (e.g., will partial credit be given?).
• The importance of the particular assessment result in relation to decision about the students (e.g., it will count for 20% of the marking period grade) (Nitko, 2011).

According to Dr. Nitko's “Educational Assessment of Students” there exists necessary test-taking skills and how they should be taught to students. He outlines nine necessary skills:

• 1. Paying attention to oral and written directions and finding out the consequences of failing to follow them.
• 2. Asking how the assessment will be scores, how the individual tasks will be weighted into the total, and how many points will be deducted for wrong answers, misspellings, or poor grammar.
• 3. Writing their responses or marking answers neatly to avoid lowered scored because of poor penmanship or mismarked answers.
• 4. Studying throughout the course and in paced reviewing to reduce cramming and fatigue.
• 5. Using assessment time wisely so that all tasks are completed within the given time.
• 6. Using their partial knowledge and guessing appropriately
• 7. Reflecting, outlining, and organizing answers to essays before writing; using an appropriate amount of time for each essay.
• 8. Checking the marks they make on the separate answer sheets to avoid mismatching or losing one's place when an item is omitted.
• 9. Reviewing their answers to the tasks and changing answers if they can make a better response. (Nitko, 2011).

Schools that use standardized educational survey tests that have been developed using empirical research benefit from a high level of standardization and usually reliability and validity. Multilevel survey batteries will assess the assessment for content and learning targets covered, reliability data, and bias screenings. These assessments will have two equivalent forms and permit both in-level and out-of-level testing. That is, the assessment is given to students who are both in and out of the grade level appropriate for the assessment. A student Is measured best when a test is tailored to the student's functioning level (Nitko, 2011).

There is a certain benefit to using the tests that come with curriculum materials. Namely, the topics in the tests closely match the material that is being taught. They are convenient and little alteration needs to be done to have them ready for student use. Unfortunately the quality of assessments that come with curriculum material is usually poor (Nitko, 2011). Dr. Nitko states that text-series authors are seldom proficient in assessment development and that the editorial staff probably do not edit the questions for technical correctness or appropriate rigor (Nitko, 2011). Accompanying assessments must be looked over carefully and checked for completeness, to be sure the questions make sense, and to adjust tasks that may be too hard or too easy. Do not forget to make sure the sure the questions match the objectives you are teaching!

Teachers can write their own assessments, of course, but this also has pros and cons. The obvious benefits of writing one's own questions is knowing that the tasks match the objectives and what is being taught in class. Tests teachers write for themselves risk poor reliability however. Unless the teacher has had time to try the assessment previously and assess the item difficulties and consistency of scores the teacher risks giving an assessment they may have to adjust for later depending on the students' overall performance.

Personally, I support standardized testing to a large degree and yet wish it was not such a large part of student assessment. I feel it is hard enough on students to struggle in a national economy and global job market when the schools cannot agree on even content standards. Standardized tests represent the baseline that students must meet or exceed in order to, supposedly, do well after they have graduated a certain grade level. However, there are so many failings in standardized tests. They cannot possibly assess all the cognitive levels and reach students of all different learning styles. They test largely fact retention; training hordes of academic Trivial Pursuit players who are terrified when confronted with public speaking, mathematicians who do not understand the question unless a formula has been provided, and historians who know which battles were certainly NOT fought at a particular time but not quite which ones were.

I dream of those project based curricula that guide students in the ways of the real world. Students completing projects and applying knowledge drawn from more than one class to solve problems and never again complain “I will never ever use what I learned in this class again!” Alas, it cannot be. Even those schools who use performance based assessment still must adhere to standardization in order to prove the objectives have been met. I am rather okay with that. Until all schools are created equal, standardization is the tool that ensures they at least pretend to be.

References:

Coleman-Ferrell, T. (2013). Standardized Achievement Tests in the Era of High-Stakes Assessment (Slides). Retrieved from www.Blackboard.com.

Ellis, K. (2002). Comprehensive Assessment: An Overview. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/comprehensive-assessment-overview-video

Nitko, A. J. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students. (6th Ed). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Microsoft Free Clipart. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=exam&ex=1#ai:MP900402266|

Cradle to Prison Pipeline (Opinion Piece)

Preface: I was asked to write a piece on teaching and the Culture of Discrimination using the "Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign" and another video (referenced). This work is what resulted. Though it is riddled with statistics it is an opinion piece and has not been constructed as an educational tool as most of my other blogs have. The content of this piece contains a history of racism and may offend some readers. Please take that into consideration. (However, there are no racial epithets. This piece is "safe for work".)

First I would like to offer my emotional response to the video "Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign", from the Louisiana Summit by the Children's Defense Fund in 2012. I realize that I never learned about the period of history talked about in the video. I was not educated on "Jim Crow" laws, though I had heard the term before. The notion that these laws were written and created for the purpose of driving black men into prisons to be rented out to the same jobs they did as slaves, strikes me as so outrageous and ridiculous... by my twentieth century mindset. My first response is outrage on behalf of the black population at the time. Mr. Ronald Mason, President of the Southern University system, teaches that after the Jim Crow laws were abolished the War on Drugs served the purpose of jailing impoverished black men even more effectively (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Nov 7). According to Mr. Mason 70% of the jailed population of Louisiana is black and 90% of those persons are men. The Children's Defense Fund (2009) states that in America a black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime; a White boy a 1 in 17 chance. A black girl born in 2001 has a 1 in 17 chance of going to prison in her lifetime; and a White girl a 1 in 111 chance. There is no scientific evidence that black people are genetically predisposed to make bad decisions, so the answer must lie in the American justice system and culture (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Nov 7).

As a female and a feminist I feel the exclusion of the black female statistic, though I understand that that 90% of jailed blacks are men is significant. In the September/October 2012 issue of "Humanist" it is noted that "despite being less than 9 percent of the U.S. population, black women are the largest segment of the skyrocketing female prison population." "And colorism plays a role in black female sentencing and incarceration rates as well. According to a recent study done in North Carolina prisons, dark-skinned black women were more likely to receive and serve longer sentences than lighter-skinned black women (Hutchison, 2012)." Though feminism and female black imprisonment may seem a separate topic to the Southern University System it is a symptom of the same sickness: the War on Drugs, "suspension and expulsion policies that fuel the school-to-prison pipeline" (Hutchinson, 2012), and a religious culture of negotiated subservience to "morality" in an attempt to offset an overwhelming cultural representation of the hypersexualized black female "role model" (Hutchinson, 2012). I feel that the black female cannot be excluded in this conversation as it seems she has been. All of my following work will be in the view of the "black race", not the "black male", including but not limited to my postulates for solutions.

I asked myself what I, as a future science teacher, can do to protect my students from this culture of discrimination; how can I equip them to defend against a system that seems to be stacked against them? I imagine myself saying "Do cops pull over people of color? Join the police force, be the cop and change why traffic stops happen. Do judges sentence black people more harshly? Be the judge, and sentence people fairly according to the scope of their crime. Be the change you want to see in the world! I felt that people didn't get an appropriate emphasis on science and math in school, so I became a science teacher." Mr. Mason mirrors my sentiment. "What can the Southern University System do for the United States? 1. Increase the number of black [omitted]* bachelor degree graduates. 2. Increase the number of black teachers. 3. Bring truth about the relationships with black [people]** in America. 4. Establish historically black universities as bases for long term systematic change. (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Oct 7). Immediately curious about why the bases had to be "historically black" if we, as advocates, are trying to bring about racial equality, Mr. Mason says that black universities historically are specifically designed to promote black interest against the system of oppression (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Oct 7).

School is supposed to be a place to learn how to think critically, to respond instead of react, to prepare to enter academia and the real world with a desire to improve it while enjoying our lives. So many things in the current cultures are stacked against people that are non-white, impoverished, female, disabled, or outside of the local religion... Teachers are the guides of education and end up being the ones that weave global culture through what they permit, omit, and emphasize. If teachers cannot change the parents and their bias, or save the world today, we can equip students with the desire, drive, and tools to change it for themselves and their own children.

End note: I watched Public School Prepares you for Prison Life, by TheAlexJonesChannel and agree that a school throwing children in prison, even for an hour, for minor infractions is a violation of human rights, a striking example of mental torture and abuse, and the indoctrination of the "why bother" mentality associated with the culture of discrimination. However, I could not finish the rest of the video (I stopped at 11:26, and wish I had stopped sooner). I was not dressed appropriately to attend such profound discourse: I forgot my tinfoil hat.


*Omission: The word "male" was omitted in deference to gender equality in education and advocacy.
**The word "men" has been changed to "people" in deference to gender equality.


References:

Children's Defense Fund (2009). Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign. Retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/cradle-prison-pipeline-summary-report.pdf

Children's Defense Fund (2012). CRADLE TO PRISON PIPELINE® CAMPAIGN. Retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/programs-campaigns/cradle-to-prison-pipeline/

Children's Defense Fund (2012 Nov 7). Cradle to Prison Pipeline Lousisiana Summit. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eZD0BozS-s

Hutchinson, R. (2012). The “Return” of the Welfare Queens: Feminism, Secularism, and Anti-Racism. /Humanist/ (September/October 2012). 19-20.

TheAlexJonesChannel (2012, Oct 30). Public School Prepares You for Prison Life. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZv0WgV2oMc

Teaching Moment: Maria Sibylla Merian's 366th Birthday

Teaching Moment!

Today's Google Doodle is a very pretty figure with leaves and animals. The hovertext proclaims April 2 as "Maria Sibylla Merian's 366th Birthday".

Wasserskorpion, Frösche, Kaulquappen
und Wasserhyazinthe
Amsterdam 1705

Wikipedia says Maria Sibylla Merian was a naturalist and scientific illustrator who studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings about them. She was born in 1647 in Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire (now in Germany) and received her artistic training from her stepfather Jacob Marrel, who was a still life painter.


When she was 52 she traveled to the Surinam jungle in South America to understand metamorphosis in as many species as possible. There she discovered a new species, but was known to have huge trees cut down just to collect the insects. (Not a very eco-friendly tactic, from a modern point of view).

She published her major work "Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium", containing her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, and is considered the most significant contributors to the field of entomology (the study of insects).

 Though it was difficult for women to work in science during Medieval times, during the 16th and 17th centuries of the Scientific Revolution women could work in science Germany. There, the tradition of female participation in craft production enabled some women to become involved in observational science, especially astronomy. Between 1650 and 1710, women made up 14% of all German astronomers.

Still, according to Michon Scott "Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium was often judged harshly during the 19th century. Merian was occasionally criticized for depicting insects on plants they didn't inhabit, but she explained that she didn't want to show the same plant again and again. One picture that drew particular scorn showed the murder of a hummingbird by a wretched tarantula. Reverend Lansdown Guilding, who, in the words of one historian, "never set foot in Surinam," called the plate "entomological caricature." What upset him, besides the bird-killing spider, was the depiction of ants building bridges with their bodies — a process that surprises no one today" (Scott 2011).

For more information check out a biography on her, like Kim Todd's Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. I know I will!