Preparing for Standards-Based Testing - Addressing Your Concerns

Over the years, pre-KAT teachers have articulated pressures they feel from standardized testing: they express concerns that KAT might conflict with the time they need to prepare their students for these high-stakes assessments.

This issue of KAT Talk features an example of why this concern needn't exist. KAT should not be seen in competition ion with time spent preparing youngsters for standardized tests! On the contrary, as a standards-rooted model, KAT supports the kind of excellent teaching and learning that appropriate, standards-based tests are supposedly assessing.

Most current state assessments now include both multiple choice and open-ended items. In many instances, students are asked to read a challenging passage or examine a matrix of data. Questions require them to interpret the meaning accurately, and to make informed inferences and applications of these meanings. Increasingly, student-constricted responses to writing prompts encourage higher level thinking skills and more authentic performance-based work.

Of course, intelligent, well-intentioned people can still debate about the rule of prior knowledge and experience in biasing the results and uses of test results. Legitimate controversy also persists on the relative value of standardized tests and on who determines educational curriculum. Sounds like an excellent KAT issue for interested kids to study!

Meanwhile, in this issue we provide a concrete illustration of the sorts of exercises around which relevant instruction can he strengthened and assessments can be practiced. Be sure to notice the opportunities this lesson presents for enhancing (1) vocabulary and language arts development; (2) applied mathematics/statistics/inference; (3) social studies content; (4) analysis and problem solving.

Also be sure to take advantage of the rubrics and model responses offered here in order to make the most of these exercises with your classes.

Test Tip

Here's another tip on using KAT' to prepare for standardized testing! The KAT scenarios—found in Chapters 2 and 8 in the KAT Manuel, and the ones we've practiced on in staff development workshops—make great writing prompts. Students can work on constructing thoughtful responses to these authentic community-based issues. Teachers can use the rubrics provided in Chapter 8. or form their own, based on academic proficiencies they're trying to enhance. Share these rubrics up-front with your students, so they understand clearly what goals they're trying to achieve.

Notes About Centerfold Lesson
Centerfold Lesson 1

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