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Meeting the Challenge of High-Stakes Testing While Remaining Child- Centered: The Representations of Two Urban Teachers

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 July 2005, 12:01 CDT

Current education policies aimed at accountability create pressing dilemmas for many educators. Much research points to the potentially harmful effects of high-stakes testing on students, such as narrowing school curriculum to only that which is covered on exams (Abrams, Pedulla, & Madaus, 2003; Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000; Cimbricz, 2002; Darling-Hammond & Wise, 1985). In addition, as Blackwell (2004) pointed out, accountability has many potential hidden costs, including a weakening of teachers' personal connections with students and the loss of shared learning journeys. Although these important concerns and others have been raised about the effect of high-stakes tests on students and about the relationship between students' test scores and learning, the fact remains that students' performance on high-stakes tests is of increasing significance for their futures. For example, some states retain students or withhold high school diplomas from students who do not pass the tests. Such potential consequences undeniably create tension for educators as they attempt to balance concern for the whole child's development with concern for his or her performance on a single test. Nowhere is this reality more painfully felt than in the lives of low-income students of color and their teachers.

Much evidence suggests that the achievement gap between white students and students of color has widened (Hedges & Nowell, 1998; Madaus & Clarke, 2001). Teachers everywhere are grappling with how to close this gap. Thus, it is incumbent upon the education research community to shed light on ways that some teachers have facilitated the success of low-income students of color on high-stakes state assessments, while remaining child-centered.

The Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE), having synthesized research across multiple at-risk groups, developed five generic principles to guide the instruction of diverse learners: 1) facilitating learning through joint productive activity among teachers and students, 2) developing students' competence in the language and literacy of instruction throughout all instructional activities, 3) contextualizing teaching and curriculum in the experiences and skills of home and community, 4) challenging students toward cognitive complexity, and 5) engaging students through dialogue, especially instructional conversations (CREDE, 1997). With these principles in mind, we began a year-long study of exemplary teaching in an urban elementary school.

The previous year, the school had received a grade of "F" from the state's department of education, based on the students' poor performance on the high-stakes exam in reading, mathematics, and writing. Most of the students were living in poverty; 95 percent of the student body qualified for free or fee-reduced lunch. We selected two teachers to study, one from 3rd grade and one from 5th (hereafter referred to as Ms. Third and Ms. Fifth), whose students, in spite of the school's failing grade, did well on the exam. Both were nominated as exemplary teachers by their principal and other teachers and had been selected as teacher of the year. Despite their shared exemplary status, they differed in obvious ways. Ms. Third, a white female in her fifth year of teaching, never had a desk or a piece of paper out of place in her classroom. Ms. Fifth, an African American woman in her 26th year of teaching, taught in a class that was crowded, with piles of papers and student projects cluttering every corner.

Months of classroom observations and interviews with the teachers, their students, and others revealed that, despite their obvious differences, the two teachers believed in several common principles of practice. This article elaborates on just one of those principles-the use of a variety of strategies to help students make sense of and understand new skills and concepts. Referred to in the research literature as "representing," this principle was a cornerstone of both these teachers' efforts. By providing and seeking representations, the teachers collaborated with their students to promote mastery of new ideas.

Table 1

Representation Taxonomy

REPRESENTING

Often used in the context of math and science instruction, "representing" refers to the ways teachers transform content so that students can understand it. Representations may include metaphors, analogies, explanations, illustrations, and examples (Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987). In order for representations to work well for students, students must be able to relate to them (Resnick, 1989). Thus, teachers must have an understanding of the students' background knowledge in order to create powerful representations. A representation that works for one group of students may not work as well for another group. Therefore, simply providing a list of representations used by these teachers likely would be of little relevance for other teachers. Our analysis did reveal, however, the following salient features of the representations we found in the two classrooms that may be useful for all teachers to consider: 1) being explicit, 2) using the familiar to explain the unfamiliar, 3) breaking down larger concepts into smaller parts, and 4) providing multiple exposures to new concepts (see Table 1). Also, representing was not reserved only for the teachers. They sought representations from their students as a way to encourage them to think deeply about their learning. Although not a new instructional practice, representing takes on increased importance in a testing context that can promote content coverage over content appreciation and mastery.

Vignettes from the teachers' classrooms illustrate how the teachers provided representations. Each vignette also demonstrates how the teachers drew on multiple modes of representing within a single lesson or activity. (A fourth kind of representing, providing multiple exposures, is harder to capture in a brief vignette.)

In the first vignette, Ms. Third conducts a writing lesson that she crafted with the state's writing assessment in mind. For the assessment, students are given either a narrative or an expository prompt and are asked to plan and write an essay in 45 minutes. Although the lesson that follows does not characterize all of Ms. Third's writing instruction, it is a structure she uses frequently in order to prepare her students for the state test.

VIGNETTE #1: ADVENTURES WITH A LEPRECHAUN

Seventeen students are seated on the floor surrounding Ms. Third as they discuss a story they will be writing. It is St. Patrick's Day, and students have been reading books about this holiday. They have started a chart listing what they have learned so far. Ms. Third begins, "When I was a little girl, my brother told me a story about a leprechaun named Sammy who lived in our backyard. I was wondering-If you met a leprechaun, what are some of the problems that might happen?" Students eagerly offer suggestions. "He might trick you and leave," offers Cody. "Or, he might be scared of you or something," suggests Monet. "I love those ideas," says Ms. Third. "Who has some other ideas?""He might sneak food from your garden," offers Hedrika. "You could cut down his home on accident," says Jamal. "Or, he could get pushed out of his house with water from the hose," suggests Judy.

"These are all terrific suggestions for problems in a story. Let's look at the writing prompt. I want you to be thinking about what your story will be about." Ms. Third turns on the overhead projector, displaying the following writing prompt:

"Wouldn't it be neat to meet a leprechaun? Imagine what might happen if you met a real live leprechaun. When you get your outline for your story plan, write your name on it."

"Okay, first we need to think about what kind of writing we need to do," says Ms. Third. "Oooo, there's a clue word in the prompt that tells me what kind of writing. It's the word 'story.' 'Story' means that it will be a narrative. Let's look at our plan to see how many parts a narrative story usually has in it."

Each student has a story outline that includes space for writing down brief information about the characters, setting, problem, events leading to the solution, and solution. The story outline is organized into three parts. Students readily notice this detail and tell Ms. Third that a narrative story has three parts. Ms. Third completes her story outline by using think-alouds. "Hmmm, characters. That is who will be in the story." She then writes down, "Me, the leprechaun, and the class."

"The next thing that I need to decide is where the story will take place," Ms. Third tells the class. "We call the place the 'setting.' I think my setting will be on a class field trip in the woods. Problem? That's something that makes readers want to read my story. It's also something I have to have fixed up by the end. I think I will keep my problem a secret!

"Now, I want you to begin planning your story by filling in this planning sheet. Remember, there should be three events in the middle of the story that lead us to a solution to the story's problem. Begin completing your planning sheet." With this, Ms. Thir\d begins to circulate, answering individual questions. Students work hard to complete their planning sheets. Some students share what they have written with classmates; others work independently. After some time passes, she asks for students to tell the class what they have written on their planning sheets.

Next, Ms. Third begins to write her story on a large sheet of white paper. As she writes, students offer ideas for the story, which Ms. Third incorporates enthusiastically. When students seem stuck on how to write about the setting, Ms. Third reminds them they can always use real events from their own lives to help them. They decide to use events from a recent field trip.

"Let's see. We've introduced our characters and setting. We've introduced the problem in our story. That means that the beginning of the story is drafted. Now we have to decide what happens next. Remember, we need three events that will eventually lead us to a solution."

Being Explicit

Ms. Third named and defined new concepts for students, provided conspicuous strategies (Kame'enui, Carnine, Dixon, Simmons, & Coyne, 2002) to help them accomplish writing tasks, and demonstrated processes by which the students could solve academic problems. For example, Ms. Third named and defined the concepts of "character,""setting," and "problem" with clear, direct language. She also explained, and provided access to, two strategies often used by writers. First, she gave students a story planning sheet as a temporary scaffold for writing narrative stories. This helped the students think about the necessary elements of narratives. In rereading the story aloud, Ms. Third summarized for students what belongs in the beginning of a narrative. Thus, she made explicit for her students what often may be implicit-that stories have certain elements and that the beginning of a story generally contains a subset of those elements. She also explicitly stated that the middle of the story should contain three events that lead to a solution. Second, she told students that drawing on life experiences (e.g., using their own experiences from a recent field trip) is a useful strategy when they had trouble deciding how to continue their stories. By being explicit, Ms. Third provided these novice writers access to the kind of writing that they would be expected to produce on the state's assessment test.

Finally, Ms. Third also demonstrated an explicit process for solving an academic problem. The first task students encounter on the state's writing assessment is to determine what kind of an essay to write. By pointing out the clue word "story," Ms. Third showed students one way to determine what kind of essay to write. Furthermore, her think-alouds modeled for students a logical process for creating a narrative essay.

Using the Familiar To Explain the Unfamiliar

Ms. Third drew on her students' fascination with the leprechaun myth to engage them in a challenging writing lesson. She read to them about leprechauns, discussed leprechauns in the Morning Meeting, and created a chart of their knowledge and questions about leprechauns. Therefore, she paved the way for learning new writing skills by building and using familiar and interesting content. Ms. Third used this representing in another manner when she used words students knew (i.e., "who" and "where") to help them understand the two lesser known words, "character" and "setting." She helped them recognize their understanding of the concept of "problem" by having them generate examples of problems they might encounter with a leprechaun. Later, she used language that was familiar to them to define problem as "something that makes readers want to read my story," and "something I have to have fixed up by the end."

Breaking Down Larger Concepts Into Smaller Parts

Ms. Third used this form of representing masterfully in the writing lesson. Planning and writing an essay is a demanding task. The added challenge of completing the task within a 45-minute period can make the writing test a daunting experience. Ms. Third created the story outline form to help students grasp ideas about essay substance and structure. By breaking down the complex tasks into component parts, and relying on explaining, modeling, guided practice, and independent practice, Ms. Third gradually led students through the processes required for success on the writing test.

VIGNETTE #2: WE'RE GOING TO THE MALL

Ms. Fifth walks to a table holding several items that one might find for sale at the mall. Approaching the table, she calls out, "We're going to the mall!" Jerome whispers excitedly, "Yes! I love this game!" Lifting a sweater from the table, Ms. Fifth says, "When you go to the mall, and you see an item that is $70, like this sweater, and then you see a percentage sign that says 30 percent off, you've got to know if you've got enough money to pay for it." She asks several students if they have enough money to buy the sweater at the sale price. They are unsure. "In order to figure this out, you've got to do some math. Here's how it works." She explains that three numbers are needed to figure out whether or not you have enough money-the original price, the discount, and the sale price. She writes on the board the information they have about the sweater. "Which is the original price?" she asks. "The discount? The sale price?" Ms. Fifth explains, "As I teach you how to calculate the price of a discounted item, I want you to carefully label each number. Once you really understand how to do these kinds of problems, you won't have to label the numbers. For now, labeling them helps you think about what you're doing and why. You know what I always tell you-you've got to make mind movies so you can really see what you're doing and why."

Being Explicit

Although explicit instruction is less evident in this vignette than it was in Ms. Third's writing lesson, Ms. Fifth hints at it as she names the three components of this kind of math problem. She leaves nothing to chance as she clearly states the elements and requires students to label each of them. Ms. Fifth's instruction was full of explicit representing as she named and defined concepts and skills and repeatedly demonstrated the logical thinking required to solve math problems.

Using the Familiar To Explain the Unfamiliar

In the vignette, Ms. Fifth draws on the students' familiarity with the mall to help them understand discounts. By referring to specific items and to the money in their pockets ("Do you have enough to buy it?"), she engages them in what might have been, on a textbook page, an abstract and incomprehensible problem.

Breaking Down Large Concepts Into Smaller Parts

By focusing on each component of the discount problem, Ms. Fifth breaks the problem into its constituent parts (i.e., the price, the discount, and the sale price) so that students understand precisely what numbers are needed for them to solve these kinds of word problems. Furthermore, they are able to make sense of the problem- solving process, because they spend time discussing the key parts, what they mean, and their relationship to one another.

PROVIDING REPRESENTATIONS: MULTIPLE EXPOSURES

Ms. Third and Ms. Fifth provided their students with multiple opportunities to learn new skills or concepts, although those opportunities may not have been immediately apparent in the two vignettes. Multiple exposures, which is different from practicing, helps students make sense of new concepts or skills, and ensures that practicing becomes more than rote repetition. The teachers deliberately planned for multiple exposures-sometimes within the context of a single lesson, sometimes distributed over time-to the same new idea. As Ms. Third explained, "The lesson is ongoing. For instance, Morning Meeting will have something dealing with the lesson. Then I try to bring it in as much as possible-weave it in through the day, and I try to relate it to other things." When asked whether or not she was concerned that some of her students did not seem to understand the concept of fractions during a lesson we observed, Ms. Third said she was not worried. She was confident that with multiple, varied presentations, "eventually, most will catch on." Similarly, Ms. Fifth used an approach to math instruction that she called "one problem 10 times." She often asked students to do one problem repeatedly-with a partner or alone, using a variety of solution strategies, in their heads or on paper, as a drawing or using numerals, or teaching it to someone.

Another way that Ms. Third provided multiple exposures was through her use of thematic units of study, which provided opportunities for students to experience concepts multiple times and in multiple ways. For example, in a unit on economics, students formed companies that manufactured and sold products. In the process, students examined the cost of production, including the cost of labor. Students created advertisements for their products, and they also learned how to make change. This thematic unit provided students with multiple opportunities to use math and language skills in authentic tasks, allowing for a deeper understanding of economics and math concepts than textbook lessons would have allowed.

DEMANDING STUDENT REPRESENTATIONS

Perhaps one of the most striking features in these classrooms was the demands these teachers placed on students to provide representations of their learning-orally, artistically, kinesthetically, and in writing. In Ms. Fifth's classroom, students often worked math problems on transparencies to orally defend their solutions. It was not an uncommon experience in Ms. Fifth's room to see students debate the veracity of their answers. Just getting the answer "right" was never good enough; students had to explain how they arrived at their answers.

The teachers also demanded student representations in writing. Until students could demonstrate what they knew in writing, \these teachers did not assume students knew it. Scaffolds helped the students do their best. In Ms. Third's classroom, for example, students graded essays collectively. Carefully laid ground rules, as well as a climate of care, enabled even the weakest writers to achieve success. Peer criticism and support motivated struggling writers to be enthusiastic about trying to improve.

Students also were expected to offer artistic representations of their knowledge. Ms. Fifth's students often included drawings next to definitions in their math journals. For example, next to the definition of "perimeter," students might have a picture of a fence as a representation that perimeter measures the distance around something. As part of a thematic unit on medieval times, Ms. Third had students create stained-glass windows to represent various fractions.

Finally, both teachers often required kinesthetic representations from students. During a lesson on syllables, Ms. Fifth's students used drums to tap out the number of syllables in words. During a vocabulary lesson, Ms. Third and her students generated hand gestures for new vocabulary words. For the word "harvest," students decided to hold pretend baskets in which to place imaginary vegetables.

DISCUSSION

At the end of the year in which the study was conducted, the school received a grade of "A" from the state's department of education-a remarkable jump from the previous year's grade of "F." Both Ms. Third's and Ms. Fifth's students excelled on the required tests. In Ms. Third's class, 100 percent of students earned at least a passing grade (a score of 3 on a scale of 1 to 5) on the reading test; 88 percent of her students passed the math test. In Ms. Fifth's classroom, 100 percent of the students passed both exams.

What can we learn from the instructional methods of these two elementary teachers in a small urban school? One lesson is clear to us: Teachers do not have to sacrifice high-quality, child-centered pedagogy that focuses on sense-making and understanding in order to get their students through high-stakes tests. In fact, the teachers' attention to representing new ideas for students and demanding representations of students fits well with the recommendations of researchers (CREDE, 1997), as is evident in the following examples from Ms. Third and Ms. Fifth's classrooms that demonstrate adherence to CREDE's recommendations (in italics):

* Facilitate learning through joint productive activity among teachers and students. Through the joint productive activity of learning and writing about St. Patrick's Day and leprechauns, Ms. Third created a "common context of experience within [the] school itself," thus enabling the kind of collaboration that can only happen when all parties share knowledge about the same topic. Notably, these kinds of activities are of utmost importance "when the teacher and the students are not of the same background" (CREDE, 1997, p. 1).

* Developing students' competence in language and literacy throughout all instructional activities. Students were presented with multiple opportunities to develop oral and written language skills. We watched as 5th-grade students, students some would define as atrisk, passionately argued the merits of how best to solve a permutation problem. We watched as the teachers explicitly taught students how to recognize clue words and how to create outlines for essays that would exceed state standards. The teachers gave students access to the academic discourse of testing-specifically, how questions are asked and answered, and how knowledge claims are made and refuted.

* Contextualize teaching and learning in the experiences of home and community. Ms. Third stressed communication with her students' families, not just to inform them of what was happening at school, but also to learn about what was happening at home. When Ms. Fifth talked to students about going to the mall, she brought to life a lesson that could have been just words on the page. In another lesson, she used the concept of running out of gas to help students understand the importance of estimating.

* Challenging students with cognitively complex tasks. By refusing to water down assignments and minimize expectations, the teachers created an environment in which all students had to work to represent their knowledge in ways that would be expected on high- stakes tests. They offered the kind of "instruction that requires thinking and analysis, not only rote, repetitive, detail-level drill" (CREDE, 1997, p. 2).

* Engage students in instructional conversations. These teachers, "like parents in natural teaching, assume the student has something to say beyond the known answers in the head of the adult" (CREDE, 1997, p. 2). Evidence can be found in the nature of the kinds of questions Ms. Third asked of her students (e.g., "I was wondering- If you met a leprechaun, what are some of the problems that might happen?," or "Who has some other ideas?"), and in the fact that, each year, she asked students to tell her which activities they favored and those they did not. In addition, Ms. Fifth routinely encouraged students to find multiple ways to solve the "same problem 10 times" and share those solutions. Student knowledge was highly valued.

Ms. Third and Ms. Fifth have provided their students with the cultural capital necessary to avoid school failure and its increasingly damaging consequences. In the process, they avoided many of the hidden costs of high-stakes testing, including the loss of personal connections with students, and were able to share journeys of learning and exploration with their students (Blackwell, 2004).

It is incumbent upon the education research community to shed light on ways that some teachers have facilitated the success of low- income students of color on high-stakes state assessments, while remaining child-centered.

References

Abrams, L., Pedulla, J., & Madaus, G. (2003). Views from the classroom: Teachers' opinions of statewide testing programs. Theory Into Practice, 42(1), 18-29.

Barksdale-Ladd, M. A., & Thomas, K. (2000). What's at stake in high-stakes testing. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(5), 384-401.

Blackwell, J. (2004). New accountability: Hidden costs for teachers and students. ACEI Exchange, 80, 146-A, 146-C.

Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. (1997). From at-risk to excellence: Principles of practice. ERIC Clearinghouse on languages and linguistics. EDP-FL-98-01.

Cimbricz, S. (2002). State-mandated testing and teachers' beliefs and practice. Retrieved October 11, 2002, from http://epaa.asu.edu

Darling-Hammond, L., & Wise, A. (1985). Beyond standardization: State standards and school improvement. The Elementary School Journal, 85(5), 315-336.

Hedges, L., & Nowell, A. (1998). Black-white test score convergence since 1965. In C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.), The black- white test score gap (pp. 149-181). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Kame'enui, E. J., Carnine, D. W., Dixon, R. C., Simmons, D. C., & Coyne, M. D. (2002). Effective teaching strategies that accommodate diverse learners (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Madaus, G., & Clarke, M. (2001). The impact of high-stakes testing on minority students. In M. Kornhaber & G. Orfield (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers: Inequality and high stakes testing in public education (pp. 85-106). New York: Century Foundation.

Resnick, L. B. (1989). Introduction. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (pp. 1-24). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Wilson, S. M., Shulman, L. S., & Richert, A. E. (1987). "150 different ways" of knowing: Representations of knowledge in teaching. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachers' thinking (pp. 104-124). London: Casell.

Pamela Williamson, Elizabeth Bondy, Lisa Langley, and Dina Mayne

Pamela Williamson is a doctoral candidate, Department of Special Education, Elizabeth Bondy is Professor, Lisa Langley is a doctoral student, and Dina Mayne is a doctoral student, School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Copyright Association for Childhood Education International Summer 2005

Source: Childhood Education

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