4 TRICKS TO HELP STUDENTS SUCCEED ON TESTS
When I was a student in high school and college I dreaded tests, quizzes, final exams, and really anything that "sounded or looked" like a test. As I reflect in my 6 years of teaching I have come to the conclusion that I often dreaded tests because nobody ever taught me how to successfully prepare for and take them. I have seen the students from my first year of teaching to this year overall increase not only their test performances but also not dread and stress over them as much.
4 TRICKS TO HELP STUDENTS SUCCEED ON TESTS
1. Be Organized (sounds like the obvious one but...)
There were times as a student that I felt like it was the day or two before a unit exam that the teacher would fill my classmates and I in that we were having a test. All the research and reading I have done on assessments in the classroom encourages people to study over periods of time in small chunks of time as well.
When I start a new unit in my world geography class before I start with any content I tell the students the estimated time length that we will be in a given topic and the tentative test date. I also put the tentative test date in a corner on my whiteboard. In order to give students this information I need to be organized and know what the end result is going to be with each unit and what I want each student to learn. Things can always come up and change but having a plan on my end helps my students so much.
Simply put I think that the more I can keep my students "in the loop" the less stressed they will be about thinking when a test could possibly happen.
2. Use QUIZLET
I often think about how much more successful I would have been in college had I known about Quizlet. Quizlet is an online student/teacher learning community. It's a study tool that students can use to help review and learn content. As a student or teacher you can simply search for "study sets" on a particular topic and find ones that have been created by other people. As teacher you can also great "study sets" for your students for specific information you want them to know. I create my own study sets that contain information from an entire unit that students will be tested on in additional to other material. Students can study flash cards, play games as individuals, and even take tests that are generated off of the content. What my students look forward to the most in Quizlet Live Review Days. I generally run them the day before a test and students are put into teams that compete against one another on answer questions as a group.
3. Use Google Forms
I give all my tests on Google Forms. Students use chromebooks to log into my Google Classroom and they open up a Google Form that I have created for the unit. On the creator side (teacher) you can create multiple choice, short answer, essay, etc. type of questions. Not only is Google Forms AMAZING in the sense that much of the form can automatically be graded on the spot, it helps you as a teacher find missed concepts by students. When students are done taking a test I look at all the data that Google Forms gives me and it shows commonly missed questions along with questions everyone got right. This helps me reflect on what I need to revisit if we have time before starting the next unit, but ultimately helps me prepare for when I teach that unit the following year to make sure I teach those parts of the unit in a clear manner.
4. Have Classroom Discussions
It is so easy as a teacher to want to have teacher led instruction from day to day. Although students do need that, I try my best to allow students in on the content and discussion and then provide an opportunity for students to share that information on the test with an open ended question. A perfect example of this is when I was teaching my China Unit this past month. My students spent an entire day independently reading about China's former One Child Policy. The following day we spend the day discussing what we read. I had a guideline in my mind what I wanted them to talk about (affects of the 1 child policy, history, why it was implemented etc.) but I didn't set a specific guideline to what needed to be covered first. The discussion was AMAZING. Then on test day I had an essay question, "What can you tell me about China's 1 Child Policy". I put a couple hint words that they could use if they didn't know where to start. But by letting them tell me what they knew in their on format I was really able to see what they knew and they were so much willing to share.
4 TRICKS TO HELP STUDENTS SUCCEED ON TESTS
1. Be Organized (sounds like the obvious one but...)
There were times as a student that I felt like it was the day or two before a unit exam that the teacher would fill my classmates and I in that we were having a test. All the research and reading I have done on assessments in the classroom encourages people to study over periods of time in small chunks of time as well.
When I start a new unit in my world geography class before I start with any content I tell the students the estimated time length that we will be in a given topic and the tentative test date. I also put the tentative test date in a corner on my whiteboard. In order to give students this information I need to be organized and know what the end result is going to be with each unit and what I want each student to learn. Things can always come up and change but having a plan on my end helps my students so much.
Simply put I think that the more I can keep my students "in the loop" the less stressed they will be about thinking when a test could possibly happen.
2. Use QUIZLET
 |
| www.quizlet.com |
I often think about how much more successful I would have been in college had I known about Quizlet. Quizlet is an online student/teacher learning community. It's a study tool that students can use to help review and learn content. As a student or teacher you can simply search for "study sets" on a particular topic and find ones that have been created by other people. As teacher you can also great "study sets" for your students for specific information you want them to know. I create my own study sets that contain information from an entire unit that students will be tested on in additional to other material. Students can study flash cards, play games as individuals, and even take tests that are generated off of the content. What my students look forward to the most in Quizlet Live Review Days. I generally run them the day before a test and students are put into teams that compete against one another on answer questions as a group.
3. Use Google Forms
 |
| www.google.com/forms |
I give all my tests on Google Forms. Students use chromebooks to log into my Google Classroom and they open up a Google Form that I have created for the unit. On the creator side (teacher) you can create multiple choice, short answer, essay, etc. type of questions. Not only is Google Forms AMAZING in the sense that much of the form can automatically be graded on the spot, it helps you as a teacher find missed concepts by students. When students are done taking a test I look at all the data that Google Forms gives me and it shows commonly missed questions along with questions everyone got right. This helps me reflect on what I need to revisit if we have time before starting the next unit, but ultimately helps me prepare for when I teach that unit the following year to make sure I teach those parts of the unit in a clear manner.
4. Have Classroom Discussions
It is so easy as a teacher to want to have teacher led instruction from day to day. Although students do need that, I try my best to allow students in on the content and discussion and then provide an opportunity for students to share that information on the test with an open ended question. A perfect example of this is when I was teaching my China Unit this past month. My students spent an entire day independently reading about China's former One Child Policy. The following day we spend the day discussing what we read. I had a guideline in my mind what I wanted them to talk about (affects of the 1 child policy, history, why it was implemented etc.) but I didn't set a specific guideline to what needed to be covered first. The discussion was AMAZING. Then on test day I had an essay question, "What can you tell me about China's 1 Child Policy". I put a couple hint words that they could use if they didn't know where to start. But by letting them tell me what they knew in their on format I was really able to see what they knew and they were so much willing to share.
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