When seventh-graders take the state's new computer-based standardized test in literacy next spring, not only will they see traditional reading passages but also videos and animations on monitors.
They will answer two-part questions that ask them to choose a statement about what they read and to select the evidence that supports their answer to the first question.
"It's asking you to make connections and make a decision or a judgment and provide that evidence from the text that supports your opinion," said Teresa Chance, who has assisted teachers in rural districts and charter schools with developing tasks to mimic what students will see on the new tests.
School administrators and teachers across the state have sought information from a variety of organizations and Internet programs to help prepare students for the new types of questions and to get them used to the test's administration by computer.
More than 5 million students in grades three through 11 are expected to take the new standardized tests next spring. The tests were devised by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, a consortium of about a dozen states, including Arkansas. The exams will test students on math and literacy in accordance with Common Core state standards that have been adopted by most of the 50 states since 2010.
Most school districts in Arkansas will give computer-based versions of the tests, though a small number of districts will give paper versions next year.
Learning about the exam
The Arkansas Department of Education has four literacy specialists and three math specialists who are giving 90-minute workshops across the state on the new exams, said Hope Allen, who became director of student assessment for the department in August.
The sessions cover what the new tests look like, how they are organized and the different types of questions that appear on them, said J.J. Morley, one of the literacy specialists. Morley encourages teachers to use the same terms in class that the tests use, so that when the literacy exam asks for "evidence," for example, students will know that means to find information to support their answers.
"Anytime you can mimic what they're possibly going to see is going to help," Morley said.
Allen's department has posted a list of resources to help educators prepare students for the tests. The list includes links to information from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and from other organizations such as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, The Teaching Channel, and PBS.
Allen suggests that at the beginning of class, teachers give students sample questions provided by the partnership so that students become familiar with how questions are worded.
In the West Fork School District, which has about 1,120 students in Washington County, teachers have taken the practice exams, said Lester Long, the district's curriculum administrator. A search for testing resources also led district officials to the EdCite website. Those resources were shared with teachers.
The free website allows teachers to create online assignments with videos and questions intended to simulate what students will experience with the new exams. Teachers can create their own questions or use questions shared by other teachers.
"It's more practice with the tools so the tool isn't a problem and so that it's the content I'm focusing on," Long said.
Creating new assignments
The Arkansas Public School Resource Center offers several programs to assist rural districts and charter schools, including the training initiative Above and Beyond the Core, led by Chance, a teaching specialist for the center.
"I'm excited about what the technology will allow us to do that paper and pencil won't allow us to do," she said.
Chance suggests strategies and refers teachers to websites that can help them change the types of questions they ask students to be more "PARCC-ish," she said. Teachers are using Google forms to create online assignments that embed videos for students to watch and respond to.
Another website, Gooru, allows teachers to build online quizzes, she said. For districts with limited access to the Internet, teachers can have students sketch storyboards in paper notebooks.
The resource center has also held separate training sessions at state meetings and for school districts, including one with the Two Rivers School District, which has 790 students in Yell County.
"When writing lesson plans, we think about what types of problems our students need to experience for the PARCC exam and the best medium to use," said Two Rivers Elementary School math teachers Tarah Lawrence and Veronica Scott in a joint email.
Lawrence teaches third grade, and Scott teaches fourth grade.
One strategy the teachers like involves giving each pupil in a class a different type of math problem to solve, they said. Each child then gives a presentation on the steps that he took and his results to the rest of the class. The presentations engage the entire class in discussing the problem, asking questions or making suggestions.
Teachers should give students opportunities every day to use computers, said Barbara Hunter-Cox, director of teaching and learning at the resource center.
"If you're doing good classroom practices, you don't have to purchase something to get ready," Hunter-Cox said. "You increase the rigor in your daily classroom. Have more writing in subjects like mathematics."
NW News on 12/21/2014