[eMINTS] MAP Prep Book Discussion

[Diana Dell]

Pam,

Thanks so much for taking the time to express your views regarding test
prep!  So many educators need to adopt this philosophy.  Many teachers say
to me, "I do my best teaching after testing."  There are so many factors
that lead to the "cramming-for-the-test" syndrome.  In our current
educational system, teachers are pressured by these factors to abandon what
they know is best for kids to produce "test results."  High quality teaching
is an art.  A true artist would never decide to create her next masterpiece
with a paint-by-numbers set.  MAP prep booklets are to teaching as
paint-by-numbers sets are to artistic painting.

:-Diana
diana at gamequarium.org


On 1/29/08, Pam Lowe <prlowe at myway.com> wrote:
>
>
> The following are my thoughts about preparing for the MAP, adding to the
> discussion of MAP Prep Books. If you don't agree with me, that's
> fine.  We're all individuals and have our own opinions.  This is rather
> lengthy and we're all busy people.  So, treat the following like a buffet,
> take the thoughts you like or agree with and discard the rest or delete the
> whole message.  J
>
> First, let me say that I dislike the fact that publishers are scrambling
> to make big bucks by capitalizing on teachers' and schools' fear of not
> doing well on the test.  They know that schools are between a rock and a
> hard place trying to meet the standards of NCLB.  Every state has a booklet
> geared toward their state expectations.  I would hate to see teachers make
> these books their main focus for MAP preparation.  I'm guilty of having done
> that in past… running off numerous copies of problems for practice.  I
> recently thumbed through a popular MAP Prep Book the other day and noticed
> that most of the DOK levels were geared at 1 and 2.  I'm not saying that we
> don't need to mock test, or that it would be inappropriate to use an
> occasional problem from one of these books as an example, I'm just saying
> that if I teach the content and also teach my students how to reason, think,
> and provide inquiry-based learning opportunities in order to flex their
> thinking abilities that they
> should be able to tackle any problem armed with strategies and
> confidence.  I truly believe and have experienced that if teachers do both
> these things throughout the school year, it eliminates last minute cramming
> of material and skills before the test that stresses everyone involved.
>
> Sure, there are going to be good testing years and years that are not so
> good, simply because there are some factors that are out of our
> control.  The key thing is to look at where your students started from the
> year before.  If you can raise them an achievement level, you've done
> well.  I always make a bar graph at the beginning of the year of my
> students' scores from the previous year by achievement levels.  I make a
> poster and label it, "If We Had Been a Class Last Year."  It shows the whole
> class where we are beginning.  We circle the Proficient and Advanced
> categories and write, "Our Goal."  I talk to each individual child privately
> and discuss their scores so they know what their individual goal is for the
> current year.  It encourages a team atmosphere and each child knows his/her
> goal.  We keep the poster up all year as encouragement and refer to it
> often.
>
> Occasionally I have a teacher say to me, "I don't think it's fair that we
> don't know what's on the test so that we can prepare for it."  That would
> defeat the whole purpose.  We're supposed to be about trying to encourage
> autonomous thinkers.  Knowing what's on the test so that we can prepare is,
> first, teaching to the test and second, taking a step back to the days of
> the old study guide, where you know what's going to be on the test and you
> memorize (DOK Level 1).  Once it clicked with me that part of the test is
> about content and the other part is about how well students can think, it
> changed everything.  My focus changed and it alleviated the stress for me
> and for my students.
> I tell my students on the first day of school that one of my primary goals
> is to guide them in such a way that they could be presented any problem or
> assignment and be able to problem-solve and reason out an answer(s) on their
> own, as well as, justify or explain their answer, implement a plan or
> perform an investigation.  That's my job, to teach them to think so that
> they can learn for a lifetime.
> Pam LoweSTARR TeacherSoutheast Missouri State University1 University
> Plaza, Mailstop 5500Cape Girardeau, MO
> 63701-4799800-401-6680573-651-5956http://www4.semo.edu/rpdc/STARR/STARR.htmhttp://schoolweb.missouri.edu/poplarbluff.k12.mo.us/lowe/
>
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