By Tom
Like most kids across the state, my students are in the middle of taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment, known in our school as the “S-Back.” It has been what I’ll politely call a “Learning Experience.” Most of us are used to giving paper-pencil standardized tests, and it’s stressful enough managing those; which entails keeping track of every single test, sharpening and distributing number 2 pencils, passing out the snacks, keeping the room silent, keeping the “fast finishers” busy with activities that are engaging enough to keep them quiet, yet not engaging enough to encourage the other kids to rush through their tests. With the SBAC, we have to deal with all that, plus the added stress of logging onto the SBAC Assessment Management Portal to generate an “Event Code,” getting a computer into the hands of every student, helping them log on using their 18-digit security code and the teacher-generated Event Code, and then helping them navigate into and through the test itself. As I told my wife, “Thank God for bourbon and thank God this year is only a field test.”
Three days removed from the stress and the hassle, I think I can safely draw three conclusions about these tests and the impact they’ll have on education in our state.
First of all, literacy will become even more integrated. Secondary teachers already teach reading and writing in the same period, but in the early grades, this is less the case, especially when teachers start getting serious about getting their kids ready for the state tests. The SBAC tests student’s writing skills by giving them a performance task which close reading of a series of texts and a response with an essay composed completely on the computer. Obviously we’ve always used student writing as a means to gauge their reading comprehension, but not when it comes to standardized assessments; in years past, the writing part of the test has been completely separate from the reading test and has had prompts that require very little reading skill. With the SBAC, there is no reading and writing assessment; it’s all one big ELA assessment, and the whole thing happens on a computer screen.
Which brings me to my second conclusion: students will be using technology a lot more for core curriculum activities. No more will teachers have their students draft, revise, edit and publish predominately on paper and use technology for stuff like social studies PowerPoint slideshows. To be successful on the SBAC, students need to know how to navigate between reading and writing panes on their computer screen. They’ll need to know how to compose from scratch electronically. And obviously they’ll need to know how to type. One of the things that amazed me last week was how many computers appeared out of the woodwork when it was time for those tests. That was great, but we’re going to need those machines all day, every day, in pretty much every classroom, if we want success. (And trust me; with the increased emphasis on results-based teacher and principal evaluations, we will want success.)
Of course, as everyone knows, simply placing computers into a classroom won’t cut it. Teachers are simply going to have to become proficient users of technology. We’ll need to know how to provide instruction with technology, present practice work using technology, help our students do that work on computers and then read, score and publish their work without ever having to print it out. Sure, there will still be paper, but increasingly there will be lots of web pages and word documents. For younger teachers that might not seem like a big deal, but for a guy like me, who started teaching when overhead projectors were cutting edge, that represents a significant evolution.
These changes and more are predicated on the idea that “what gets tested is what gets taught,” which is pretty much the way thing happen in education. Obviously the SBAC will get refined and improved after the results of this pilot year are analyzed, but I think it’s safe to say that we’re in for some major changes.
Next week, after my kids take the math portion, I’ll share my reflections and that side of the curriculum.
Too true, Mark, about the technology. Despite a year of having my students use “All the Right Type,” a self-paced typing program, I watched in dismay as many of them hunted and pecked their way through their tests.
As far as the level of difficulty goes, I don’t think they’ve rolled out the adaptive features yet; my kids also had different tests, but the level of difficulty seemed relative to the background of individual students.
My son’s third grade in Vancouver was also piloting the SBAC. His only real complaint was that he thought he got the wrong test because it seemed much harder than what his friends said they had been asked to do. I don’t know if they are in the stage where the assessment is adaptive and he was getting into tougher questions?
The technology is certainly going to be a confounding factor on many levels. Powers assume that all kids have experience and access–they’re digital natives after all–but the reality is not so. There are plenty of nine-year-olds out there that do not have their own iPhone, despite the claims of ubiquity thanks to a handful of visible permissive parents.