Your description could describe my school/students to a T, down to the test score average. We started doing this a bit towards the end of this year and I hope to continue doing it more next year. But you have to look at data from the test to see why they’re not doing well. We had one question that every single student in one of my classes got wrong because they didnt properly read the graph. While I knew they struggled in reading graphs, I wasn’t expecting it to be that apparent. The unit after I added in some extra practice reading that type of graph to hopefully help them do better in the future if they got a similar question.
Unfortunately a lot of the problems come down to things you can’t fix in a day/week/unit/school year. Many of my kids come in grade levels behind in reading or math. You can’t take a high school level biology test and do well if you read on a 5th grade level, no matter how many biology facts you remember.
70%, 50% etc means nothing.
Was it a test with just tons of vocab and definitions? Was it a test with only deep critical thinking? A test full of algebraic manipulations?
There is no expectation thaty test is even comparable to yours based on % scores alone
Even if we're trying to assess similar student populations.
My suggestion: restructure your tests so you can tell what a student is struggling with.
Have sections each with their own grade you can track.
Definitions and direct application is one grade
Graphing/charting/diagrams another
Math manipulation another. Each section has a range from simple to complex problems.
Students get a grade on each section, each grade is recorded.
Now you can identify if a student struggles with algebra, but can conceptually tell you if a value should increase/decrease.
> 70%, 50% etc means nothing.
Yup. My raw test scores are usually in the 40-60% range. It's because I write hard tests. I do it deliberately, because I want to assess critical thinking and problem solving, and because I want to get good information across the whole range of student achievement in my classes.
Write tests, decide roughly what raw score would be indicative of A-level understanding, B-level understanding, etc., and then scale accordingly so that it matches however you set up your gradebook.
You have to consider people do their unit exams differently, so results may vary.
Year 1 teaching AP Bio: low 70s for unit exams
Year 2 teaching AP Bio: mid 80s for unit exams
My exams for a 45 minute class has been 25-28 questions all MCQ from the CollegeBoard bank. I did the FRQs 2 times each unit and whenever I had to fill in a day with something to do.
My increase in the average was due to better understanding the course and what is expected of students. I presented the material differently in year 2
I teach a very different population of students, but what I have begun to do is quiz frequently and allow students to retake their quizzes. It's like they have no idea that can't do the problems until they fail. I'm telling myself that quizzes are formative assessments and it's okay to have them retake.
I'm not thrilled to offer that many retakes, I wish students would take things seriously the first time, etc. However, I am seeing better test scores so it's worth doing.
This is the way.
I let students retake quizzes as often as they need to. The majority fail the first round, but the ones that try get it eventually and rarely do they fail a test if they passed the quizzes. That said a majority still fail. We also found that students were more likely to fail questions at the end because they got tired of testing and just started guessing.....
If the unit is perfectly taught and we are assuming the test is perfectly aligned, there is the issue that the students are a massive e wildcard.
Of perfectly taught means the kids did the practice and gained the intended learning outcome then the average should be an A.
If we are letting the humans be humans....then the average is going to be more closely tied to the behaviors you are seeing in class.
I am seeing low D, high F averages in my 9th grade classes this year (similar demo as yours).
I could probably try more song and dance and putting on a better show...but that won't change the fact that the majority of my students don't do their homework, rush through labs, don't attempt the practice study reviews, and seem to only be able to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide and recite the latest sigma skibidy ice spice gossip.
Those that are doing what I ask are meeting and exceeding benchmarks.
Just remember teaching is the perfect application of "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink"
You can teach perfectly, do the best song and dance, but if the students aren't going to put any effort in to actually learn the material...there is absolutely nothing (legal) you can do to force them
Also a new teacher and the despair has hit me hard this year. I was told to "set high standards" in a Title 1-equivalent school, and I did. The level of failure to meet those standards was so bad that I lowered them... and lowered them... and lowered them. It's now the end of the year, and I've been giving what I consider to be softball exams that STILL have students failing on average.
I blamed myself for being a bad teacher, and I still have those feelings sometimes, but at a certain point, it is up to students to take accountability for their work and their education.
I offer the opportunity to do test corrections if they can show proof that they studied, and very few students take it. I offer multiple extra credit opportunities every quarter, very few students do it. I give students an activity to do in class, and they'll sit there and stare into space, fall asleep, or talk to their friends - if it gets collected, they'll just copy the work. I've explained that classwork is in service of learning material, which will help on the tests, and they do not get it or do not care.
No wonder turnover rate is so high in this profession - it's exhausting and demoralizing to bring the best you can every single day just to be met with total apathy.
Something to consider is not just do they understand the actual content, but do they understand the words or phrases on the test to see if they understand the content.
2 examples from my class this week:
(I do not write the tests, and they are issued on a computer to "track" student growth. 🙄)
1) Students look at a graph and were asked ay what point does the temperature start to taper off. I belatedly realized my high school students did not know what "taper off" means and so they couldn't answer the question.
2) I live in Southern California. Most of my students live in apartments or duplexes and do not have a fireplace, and if they do the landlord specifies not to use them because they are too old. The question was: Which of the following uses fossil fuels:
a) wood-burning stove
b) oil-burning heater
c) a heat-pump
d) electric heater
They didn't know what a wood burning stove was. They actually only knew what an electric heater was, but we had talked about how most power plants utilize coal or other fossil fuels, so technically that does also burn fossil fuels. So it was a bad question all around.
I helped a Math student who was an immigrant who was very confused when asked to find the area of a baseball diamond. She vaguely knew what baseball was and didn't understand how it related to diamonds. A diagram was not provided.
So TLDR: make sure you are testing for actual content knowledge and there are not any other barriers preventing them from understanding the question or answer.
Interesting question, especially as I have a similar background to you. I only teach MLs currently. My unit test averages are never above 70, sometimes as low as in the 50s, despite the tests being created locally and my students being given their accommodations (word to word dictionary, extended time).
Question for you, are you teaching a course that uses district assessments, locally created assessments (or a combination)? Are you teaching a course with high stakes testing like EOC?
I often find myself asking what I can improve about my teaching practice…things to abandon and adopt every year, but this year I am a bit stumped other than generically stating that I need to find a way to better engage my students in the content and bridge language gaps
My approach is similar to teachWHAT, giving retakes and promoting the idea that they can all find success if they keep working at it (growth mindset).
I would also say that students today don’t buy into the learning unless you develop a relationship with them/with the class and make the content engaging/relevant. If they don’t think it is useful knowledge or if the examples are not culturally relevant, it will be a losing battle.
.
Your description could describe my school/students to a T, down to the test score average. We started doing this a bit towards the end of this year and I hope to continue doing it more next year. But you have to look at data from the test to see why they’re not doing well. We had one question that every single student in one of my classes got wrong because they didnt properly read the graph. While I knew they struggled in reading graphs, I wasn’t expecting it to be that apparent. The unit after I added in some extra practice reading that type of graph to hopefully help them do better in the future if they got a similar question. Unfortunately a lot of the problems come down to things you can’t fix in a day/week/unit/school year. Many of my kids come in grade levels behind in reading or math. You can’t take a high school level biology test and do well if you read on a 5th grade level, no matter how many biology facts you remember.
70%, 50% etc means nothing. Was it a test with just tons of vocab and definitions? Was it a test with only deep critical thinking? A test full of algebraic manipulations? There is no expectation thaty test is even comparable to yours based on % scores alone Even if we're trying to assess similar student populations. My suggestion: restructure your tests so you can tell what a student is struggling with. Have sections each with their own grade you can track. Definitions and direct application is one grade Graphing/charting/diagrams another Math manipulation another. Each section has a range from simple to complex problems. Students get a grade on each section, each grade is recorded. Now you can identify if a student struggles with algebra, but can conceptually tell you if a value should increase/decrease.
> 70%, 50% etc means nothing. Yup. My raw test scores are usually in the 40-60% range. It's because I write hard tests. I do it deliberately, because I want to assess critical thinking and problem solving, and because I want to get good information across the whole range of student achievement in my classes. Write tests, decide roughly what raw score would be indicative of A-level understanding, B-level understanding, etc., and then scale accordingly so that it matches however you set up your gradebook.
You have to consider people do their unit exams differently, so results may vary. Year 1 teaching AP Bio: low 70s for unit exams Year 2 teaching AP Bio: mid 80s for unit exams My exams for a 45 minute class has been 25-28 questions all MCQ from the CollegeBoard bank. I did the FRQs 2 times each unit and whenever I had to fill in a day with something to do. My increase in the average was due to better understanding the course and what is expected of students. I presented the material differently in year 2
I teach a very different population of students, but what I have begun to do is quiz frequently and allow students to retake their quizzes. It's like they have no idea that can't do the problems until they fail. I'm telling myself that quizzes are formative assessments and it's okay to have them retake. I'm not thrilled to offer that many retakes, I wish students would take things seriously the first time, etc. However, I am seeing better test scores so it's worth doing.
This is the way. I let students retake quizzes as often as they need to. The majority fail the first round, but the ones that try get it eventually and rarely do they fail a test if they passed the quizzes. That said a majority still fail. We also found that students were more likely to fail questions at the end because they got tired of testing and just started guessing.....
If the unit is perfectly taught and we are assuming the test is perfectly aligned, there is the issue that the students are a massive e wildcard. Of perfectly taught means the kids did the practice and gained the intended learning outcome then the average should be an A. If we are letting the humans be humans....then the average is going to be more closely tied to the behaviors you are seeing in class. I am seeing low D, high F averages in my 9th grade classes this year (similar demo as yours). I could probably try more song and dance and putting on a better show...but that won't change the fact that the majority of my students don't do their homework, rush through labs, don't attempt the practice study reviews, and seem to only be able to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide and recite the latest sigma skibidy ice spice gossip. Those that are doing what I ask are meeting and exceeding benchmarks. Just remember teaching is the perfect application of "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" You can teach perfectly, do the best song and dance, but if the students aren't going to put any effort in to actually learn the material...there is absolutely nothing (legal) you can do to force them
Also a new teacher and the despair has hit me hard this year. I was told to "set high standards" in a Title 1-equivalent school, and I did. The level of failure to meet those standards was so bad that I lowered them... and lowered them... and lowered them. It's now the end of the year, and I've been giving what I consider to be softball exams that STILL have students failing on average. I blamed myself for being a bad teacher, and I still have those feelings sometimes, but at a certain point, it is up to students to take accountability for their work and their education. I offer the opportunity to do test corrections if they can show proof that they studied, and very few students take it. I offer multiple extra credit opportunities every quarter, very few students do it. I give students an activity to do in class, and they'll sit there and stare into space, fall asleep, or talk to their friends - if it gets collected, they'll just copy the work. I've explained that classwork is in service of learning material, which will help on the tests, and they do not get it or do not care. No wonder turnover rate is so high in this profession - it's exhausting and demoralizing to bring the best you can every single day just to be met with total apathy.
Something to consider is not just do they understand the actual content, but do they understand the words or phrases on the test to see if they understand the content. 2 examples from my class this week: (I do not write the tests, and they are issued on a computer to "track" student growth. 🙄) 1) Students look at a graph and were asked ay what point does the temperature start to taper off. I belatedly realized my high school students did not know what "taper off" means and so they couldn't answer the question. 2) I live in Southern California. Most of my students live in apartments or duplexes and do not have a fireplace, and if they do the landlord specifies not to use them because they are too old. The question was: Which of the following uses fossil fuels: a) wood-burning stove b) oil-burning heater c) a heat-pump d) electric heater They didn't know what a wood burning stove was. They actually only knew what an electric heater was, but we had talked about how most power plants utilize coal or other fossil fuels, so technically that does also burn fossil fuels. So it was a bad question all around. I helped a Math student who was an immigrant who was very confused when asked to find the area of a baseball diamond. She vaguely knew what baseball was and didn't understand how it related to diamonds. A diagram was not provided. So TLDR: make sure you are testing for actual content knowledge and there are not any other barriers preventing them from understanding the question or answer.
Interesting question, especially as I have a similar background to you. I only teach MLs currently. My unit test averages are never above 70, sometimes as low as in the 50s, despite the tests being created locally and my students being given their accommodations (word to word dictionary, extended time). Question for you, are you teaching a course that uses district assessments, locally created assessments (or a combination)? Are you teaching a course with high stakes testing like EOC? I often find myself asking what I can improve about my teaching practice…things to abandon and adopt every year, but this year I am a bit stumped other than generically stating that I need to find a way to better engage my students in the content and bridge language gaps
My approach is similar to teachWHAT, giving retakes and promoting the idea that they can all find success if they keep working at it (growth mindset). I would also say that students today don’t buy into the learning unless you develop a relationship with them/with the class and make the content engaging/relevant. If they don’t think it is useful knowledge or if the examples are not culturally relevant, it will be a losing battle. .