Fast pass at new test data

Time spent on AIMSWEB amounted to about 20 minutes, 3 sets of 3 minute tests, not including time to pass out and collect papers as well as time to lecture students on the importance of taking the test seriously. After the 1st mini test, I was forced to address the issue of seriousness since a couple of boys had repeated the words “sausage” and “deez nutz” during the first test, cracking up the class. I probably ought to have sent those boys to the Dean, but I did not think that would result in optimal testing conditions. My class would have been badly upset if I wrote up referrals for those double entendres and we still had two mini tests to go. So I simply addressed them all, re-explained the importance of this latest test, and sobered the group up before they tried AIMSWEB again. We seem to have reached test burnout before we started this test, but I have been giving them so many required tests and required test preps lately that I’m not sure they believe they have ever had a break.

Still, total time lost to this standardized test was specifically only 20 minutes. We then spent the rest of tutoring doing math that might help prepare for the next AIMSWEB test on Thursday, another 20 minutes. An unquantifiable, but hardly irrelevant, addition to the testing mania came when emissaries from the Dean came to fetch students for more AIMSWEB testing. Five of my students left during class to be tested. One requested student was absent. Of the five who left, four missed lecture on unfamiliar material. One went late enough so that he had heard about the 1st and 3rd interquartile range, but he missed the start of the reinforcement activity. Students were gone for times ranging from 8 minutes to 15 minutes. Conservatively, that’s 40 minutes of missed classtime for students in my classees, taken at odd and awkward intervals. These pull-outs were occurring all over the school.

Why the pull-outs? Due to the craziness from the last two administrations of this test, someone on top came up with a bit of help; instead of teachers doing all the testing and grading, paraprofessionals, coaches and Deans are doing the fluency portion of the test. I am not sure who will grade these sections. My parapro is not expecting to grade anything, so I may be stuck with the grading. In the meantime, students keep arriving at my door, interrupting my class to take yet another member of my class out for AIMSWEB testing.

I only spent 5 minutes working with a colleague to get ready for MAP testing. She could not get on the computer at first so we shelved the MAP effort. The servers lack bandwidth or something, a coach explained, and sixth grade is already MAP testing, rendering the internet dicey at times, and keeping all other students off the internet.

Eduhonesty: Time lost to standardized tests –NOT INCLUDING STUDENTS REMOVED FROM MY CLASS TO TEST ELSEWHERE — amounted to 45 minutes.

Time for tests would run much longer if I completed the grading of my “SLO” (student learning outcome) tests but I am not even starting the SLOs. I’ll describe SLO’s tomorrow if I can. Since I’ve resigned/retired, I’m skipping my SLO homework. I’ll just ask colleagues to estimate how long their own SLO tests took. I am counting these with standardized tests because they are not used for student grades. They are used to assess teacher effectiveness.

I may not get to the SLO blog post tomorrow, though. I am supposed to hunker down in Dennys to grade AIMSWEB tests after school with the guy across the hall. Grading general tests that don’t count for student grades can be pretty aggravating. I’d rather not grade these sheets alone.