Building Some Excitement

I had a revelation the other day regarding standardized tests. I have found out, finally, why standardized tests are so big. They:

1. Show what students know compared to thousands of others.
2. Show which students can actually persevere through a tedious, boring, usually disconnected multiple choice test.
3. Tap into a student's competitive instinct.

There are many other things that standardized tests do, but these are the three that jump out to me. I was never a fan of standardized tests. In high school I would get frustrated with the wording of questions, the pressure teachers put on you, and the inability of administrators and teachers to explain why in the world we are taking this thing. I tell my students the above three points. Number three really jumps out to my students and enables me to build some excitement for the DCCAS in April. I mention my experiences about standardized tests and preach that "it's not about me, this class, the school....it's about you succeeding at something." We keep track of mastery on standards (on a poster board with their name and standard names like: "Order of Operations," or "System of Equations") and each student gets a red sticker if they are below 80 percent, a green sticker if they get an 80-89 percent, and a blue sticker if they get a 90-100 percent on our weekly assessments.

This has brought great competition to the class not only with each other, but personally. Students mutter in the back of the room, "Man, I need to go blue. I'm tired of this red stuff." This was my goal. No matter how dry the material, no matter how wordy the questions, no matter how disconnected the questions seem to my students' lives, no matter how many time they are preached that "this test is important," without reasons why, my students DESIRE to succeed for themselves. That is refreshing.