Considering High Stakes Testing: IB Diploma Program and NYC Regents Exams

Bonn International School (IB Diploma Program)

The school where I completed my clinical practice, Bonn International School (BIS), is an IB school which prides itself on offering ‘a comprehensive and balanced curriculum, preparing students for realities of the outside world and inspiring them to achieve their personal best.’

BIS offers the IB Diploma Program which is a rigorous two-year program for grade 11 and 12 that provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into higher education. The IB Diploma is recognized and valued by universities worldwide.

Students in the IB Diploma Program study three core elements and choose to specialize from a selection of academic subject groups. The goal of the core elements is for students to demonstrate their learning, and apply their knowledge and skills in practical and meaningful ways. The three core elements are: CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) in which students choose and complete projects related to the three concepts; Theory of Knowledge (TOK) in which students reflect on the nature of knowledge and how knowledge is constructed; and Extended Essay, an independent, self-directed piece of research, culminating with a 4,000-word paper.

Students are evaluated using both internal and external assessments, and courses finish with an externally assessed series of examinations. IB Diploma students’ exams and performances are measured against well-defined levels of achievement by independent examiners. This gives the process a high level of objectivity and reliability. Common examination formats include essays, structured problems, short-response questions, data-response questions, text-response questions, and case-study questions.

External assessments are complemented by internal assessments that vary by subject and are evaluated by the subject teacher. A variety of assessment methods are used to value the content and the process, growth and depth of academic achievement. The range of assessment methods emphasizes the IB’s respect for students’ different learning styles, needs and cultural backgrounds. Students demonstrate their growth and process towards the IB Learner Profile which serve to the strengthen a teacher’s planning towards further developing these essential IB learner attributes.

Assessments in the IB not only measure a mastery of academics but also life skills that prepare students for future work and study, for example: researching, analyzing and presenting information; evaluating and constructing arguments; self-reflection and communication and creative problem solving. Both the variety of assessment options, as well as the close collaboration between teachers and international examiners, ensures that students in the IB Diploma Program have ample, appropriate and relevant opportunities to demonstrate their learning and knowledge.

At BIS, DP students take a two-week ‘study leave’ in April and May where they independently prepare for their IB exams. Exams then take place over the course of several days in May and June. The results of these exams are then compiled to indicate school and global IB-wide graduation rates.

At my school it is important to note that not all students must strive for the IB Diploma. There is also an option to complete the BIS High School Diploma which his taught through the ‘standard level’ courses offered in the IB. This is a less rigorous program and it does not sufficiently qualify students for entrance to universities without the addition of separate university entrance exams (SAT).

Teachers in the IB Diploma program do not receive rewards for high rankings students. At my school, only teachers with strong prior IB Diploma teaching experience are hired to teach the DP, while their collaboration with external evaluators requires that they be consistently maintain the highest level of commitment to student achievement and professionalism. Teachers are hired on a two-year probational contract after which they are evaluated for a permanent contract. Student success in the IB may be a consideration in this process; however, it is not a major decision factor. More important are the teacher’s attitudes, attributes and ethical practice, which demonstrate an alignment with the IB philosophy and supports the needs of a diverse student body.

New York City Public Schools (Regents Exams)

The US federal No Child Left Behind Act requires states to define academic standards and to administer yearly assessments that measure progress of student achievement.

Elementary and middle school students in New York State take yearly State tests in core academic subjects in grades 3 an 8 to assess their knowledge of the Common Core Learning Standards. Students’ test results are one of the factors that schools use to decide whether to promote a student to the next grade level. New York City high school students must pass five Regents Exams in order to graduate. The Regents Exam assesses students’ knowledge of the learning standards defined by New York State. Subjects tested are English, math, science, global history, and U.S. history and government. In addition to the Regents Exams, student must take additional standardized tests to gain entry into institutions of higher learning, such as the SAT.

NYC schools offer alternate tests and testing conditions to accommodate a diverse demographic, including test for English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities, and in some cases, the option of taking the test in another language.

Information from testing and other data about school strengths and weakness is complied in the New York State Report Card, which is used by the state to make accountability determinations, with the goal of improving instruction and related student services. While test scores are only one aspect of measuring school performance, and are considered in conjunction with other school evaluation tools, including the School Quality Report, the Quality Review, and the NYC School Survey, they can have a considerable impact on how schools operate, how and what teachers teach, and how and what students learn.

Knowledge gained from the report card on a school's strengths and weaknesses can be used for purposes which benefit schools, but schools and teachers may also be penalized for consistent underperformance. “Failing schools” was a term I heard a lot while living in NY, and I saw many ‘failing schools’ split or transformed into Charter schools or shut down entirely, which can have grave consequences on students and communities. The pressure therefore, to have students do well on state tests is very high for all stake-holders. Teachers may feel pressured to ‘teach to the test’ rather than engage in authentic teaching, in order to increase their school and students’ scores. For students, the stress is high too. Passing these test are a ticket to graduation and may determine how well students do on subsequent tests like the SAT, allowing entry into higher education. Therefore, not doing well can have serious consequences. Schools clamber to avoid this by engaging in lengthy test preparation and ‘teaching to the test’. The standard amount of time set by the NY state legislature for time spent during school hours prepping for tests is one percent. However, a new report suggests that this is widely underestimated, revealing that actual time spent teaching to the test of closer to 2 percent. 

This testing culture can lead to loss of teaching time (particularly for new content), student testing fatigue, and loss of enthusiasm for teaching and learning for both teachers and students. It speaks very little for a high-quality, exciting and meaningful education that provides students with transferable, life skills. Nor does it leave room for teachers to exercise their passion for teaching,

The IB Diploma Exams and the Regents Exams differ greatly. The IB DP Exam culminates from years of student-led learning. Following this vein of pedagogical thinking, the exams allows room for student choice and requires students to show, demonstrate and apply their learning in creative and differentiated ways. The rigorous and difficult road leading up to the IB exams can be stressful for students, but when content is meaningful and personalized, learning is inspiring and rewarding. The Regent’s Examinees, by contrast, must prove their mastery of knowledge against concrete and specific state standards of learning, which leaves a narrow margin for students to demonstrate their learning outside of the right or wrong of the test ‘bubble’. This can be especially damaging to non-mainstream groups like new immigrant arrivals, those with learning disabilities or those with learning differences.

While both systems clearly set high standards and high expectations for student learning, I would argue that the IB system does so in a way which is more equitable, meaningful and inspiring for students, and which prepares them for the rigors, unpredictability and ever evolving landscape of the real world. My experience in an IB school has revealed that teachers and students feel rewarded and respected by assessments that value student-centered education, the exercising of relevant knowledge and the demonstration of 21st C skills, no matter how high their stakes.

Sources:

Assessment and Learning Development in IB PYP Schools. Final Report, November 2015. International Baccalaureate Organization. School of Education, Deacon University. PDF file. http://www.ibo.org/contentassets/cc0cf81a37814d94b46b9711a50a1a98/final-report-ib-pyp-assessment.pdf

Bonn International School Homepage. Welcome to Grades 11 and 12 Diploma Years. Program Information and Curriculum Guide 2016-2017. PDF file. https://www.bonn-is.de/sites/default/files/dp_curriculum_guide_v.2.pdf

International Baccalaureate Organization. ‘Assessments and Exams’. http://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/assessment-and-exams/ 

NYC Department of Education. ‘Yearly Testing’. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/resources/testing/default.htm

Valerie Straus. Report: Time Spent on Standardized Testing is Schools is Underestimated. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/19/report-time-spent-on-standardized-testing-in-schools-is-underestimated/?utm_term=.a7275e92c956

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are a critical aspect of the teaching process in any classroom, but particularly in differentiated classrooms where ages and abilities are widely varied.  The age range of the students in my private art classes range from 7-14 years old with vastly differing abilities and levels of English. It is absolutley imperative that I continuously assess where my students are in their understanding during a lesson. Formative assessments serve as checkpoints during a lesson, which inform the teacher of the necessary and appropriate nature, type and direction of descriptive feedback she gives her students. This is differentiation in action. Moreover, this process allows students to revise their efforts and be assessed and accredited anew, which increases the quality and value of their learning (Wormeli 2010).

Romero Britto "Gato Feliz"

The performance objective I am using for this exercise is part of a 3^rd grade unit on pop-art drawing in the style of artist Romero Britto. 

Art deco pattern

Objective: Understand what a ‘pattern’ is, and how to draw a variety of patterns. 

In this lesson I am checking that students fully grasp the concept and definition of patterns and can effectively recreate these according to definition.

Dos and Don’ts

The first formative assessment I will use is Dos and Don’ts. In this exercise, students list 3 dos and 3 don’ts when applying, using, or relating to the content (Teach Thought, 2013). For this lesson, students will create a simple mindmap or chart and will indicate in written, descriptive terms what characteristics patterns do have and what characteristics are not consistent with a pattern. This activity encourages students to think beyond the simple definition of a term or concept by pushing them to consider it in terms of its contrast or opposite. I can properly assess their understanding of the term in this situation due to the fact that they cannot simply reproduce a rote definition.

Self-Directed Response

The second formal assessment I will use is Self-Directed Response. This assessment asks students to prove their understanding in a diagram, written or related form in such a way that a stranger would understand (Teach Thought, 2013). A lot of the learning, which happens in my art room, is visual in nature. Drawing lessons, for example, require that students can reproduce or recreate a style or element of line and shape. For younger children particularly, success is determined not only by their ability to observe closely and following guidelines, but also the nature of their fine and gross motor skills, and the proper use and handing of materials. Therefore, when assessing students leading up to a drawing lesson, I will often have students practice several preliminary sketches. For this assessment, students would draw a practice sketch of the assigned drawing task with all required elements correctly in place, such that an outsider would be immediately be able to identify the intention, guidelines and elements therein. If content is lacking, difficult to identify or generally unclear (i.e., an intended bird looks like an egg), I know I need to provide feedback and make adjustments before moving forward with the final drawing task.

Checks for Understanding

The third formative assessment I would use is Checks for Understanding. CFU is a strategy that allows for understanding continually while a lesson is being taught (Smart at Math, 2011). What’s particularly useful about this assessment strategy is that it operates in real-time, allowing teachers to make adjustments on the spot, before students have the chance to repeat and reinforce any mistakes. The teacher teaches, then immediately checks for understanding by calling on all students at random and asking questions. When answers are correct, the teacher repeats and confirms the correct response. When incomplete, the teacher elaborates on the question. When incorrect the correct answer is provided (Smart at Math, 2011). My classes are very small and this strategy lends itself nicely to an ongoing, open, ping-ponging style of teaching. The constant back and forth between my students and myself keeps them engaged, while calling on them at random keeps them alert and on their toes. When appropriate, I like to alter the strategy slightly by using the Right is Right and No Opt Out strategies to encourage students to think more deeply about their responses and have them commit to seeking out the correct response.

Formative assessments are useful and important tool for teachers. When used frequently during a lesson, they can make the difference between a lesson that students didn’t ‘get’ and a quality lesson with great instruction value.

Sources

Teach Thought (2013). 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds. Retrieved on January 27, 2017 from: http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/assessment/10-assessments-you-can-perform-in-90-seconds/

Smart at Math (2011). Checking for Understanding.wmv Retrieved on January 27, 2016 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7TO9alAss

Wormeli, Rick (2010). Formative and Summative Assessment. Retrieved on January 27, 2017 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4

Reflection on Understanding and Applying Standards

  

This has been an intense and eye-opening week. It shed light on exactly how challenging, and how exciting, teaching can be. I learned important tools that will make the learning experience more relevant and engaging for my students, but will also guide and clarify the planning process for me.

To begin, we were asked to unpack standards. As a private art teacher I have never worked with standards before, so that alone was new to me. With little knowledge of standards, I used to believe them to be strict guidelines against which teachers are required to align their curriculum, and assumed them to therefore be restrictive and limiting - almost disenfranchising teachers in that they ‘tell’ teachers what to teach. What I learned, however, is that standards do not thwart a teacher’s creativity or autonomy, but actually help to empower and strengthen her teaching. We learned several processes this week, which help teachers, do just that.

Unpacking Standards

Standards provide little guidance for teachers when taken at face value, yet standards are rich with possibility, information and potential. To unearth their full character, teachers must dig deep. To fully grasp what a standard is about it is necessary to “unpack” it.  Unpacking standards requires deconstructing it’s meaning – pulling out the verbs, isolating the nouns, and deciphering the ‘big idea’. Having studied philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the exercise of deconstructing meaning from a text, a sentence or a simple word, is not new to me. What was new to me, however, was the approach of looking to the nouns, verbs and big idea as indicators of what students are expected to know and do. I found this rather simple exercise to be enormously helpful in clarifying what my role is as teacher within the framework of a standard. It confirmed the fact that, rather than being a central figure in the classroom presenting facts, it is my responsibility to ensure my students come away with the big idea, the deeper meaning and the skills necessary to take learning to the next level. Furthermore, I found that when I unpacked a standard, I actually became more creative in my teaching, since it presented an array of possibilities and interpretations to which I had to find ways to align my teaching. This exercise confirmed the fact that standards are not bare-boned directives, but rather rich with potential for meaningful student engagement, and it’s our role as teachers to identify, embrace and translate that potential into meaty lessons with sticking power. Unpacking standards helps us do just that.

Backwards Mapping

Backwards mapping is the logical next step after unpacking a standard. It is a strategy that helps teachers teach towards goals in a way that equips students with learning experiences, contexts and meaningful activities that can be applied autonomously to varied and complex situations inside and outside of school (McTighe, 2012).

In backwards mapping the curriculum is designed starting from the goal and moves backwards from there – it is essentially a ‘starting from the end’. The process helps guide the design of lessons, units and teaching techniques such that specific learning goals are reached. It allows teachers to take the learning goals, objectives and expected proficiencies outlined in a standard, and to create targeted lessons consisting of activities, assessments and learning experiences that ensure students reach desired goals through each step of a unit. This gives the student increased responsibility and autonomy as they work their way through a lesson or unit, which in turn engages them deeply with their learning and provides them with vital life-skills which will carry them towards future educational success.

I found this process to be demanding, challenging and fun. Coming up with rigorous and meaningful curricula is not easy, however, backwards mapping provided me with a systematic, step-by-step guide on how to do this. Without this strategy in place I can certainly see how teachers might lose their way, veer off-track, lose focus of the big idea, and tend toward basal teacher-centered teaching resulting in lower-level learning. I found backwards mapping to be essential to the design of an empowering student-centered curriculum.

Writing Objectives

Writing objectives is the culminating and likely the most important stage of teaching toward a standard. This is where a teacher decides with utmost precision what learning, skills, knowledge and abilities she wants her students to come away with. Objectives are written against SWBAT guidelines (Students Will Be Able To) and should be SMART (Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Targeted). I found that referring to these acronyms in the simple exercise of asking myself what I want my students to be able to do proved very effective in shifting my perspective of ‘teacher doling out knowledge’ to ‘student engaged in a learning process’. Furthermore, writing SMART objectives with reference to Bloom’s Taxonomy of higher order learning domains required me to think above and beyond the lower level learning domains (remembering and understanding) and to reach for the higher order domains (apply, evaluate, analyze and create).

I was both challenged and excited about using higher order thinking terms such as demonstrate, sketch, develop, compare, defend and create when designing a 3^rd grade art lesson. I felt that using the SWBAT and SMART acronyms, together with Bloom’s Taxonomy, pushed me to develop an exceptionally rigorous lesson for my young artists, one where they are required to “critique the work of their peers against project guidelines” and “defend their design choices” and “compare the work of one artist to that of another”. These types of exercises help them develop life-skills that are widely applicable far beyond the art room while they are also observable and measurable which helps me gage student learning. I will undoubtedly be using this effective process for future lesson planning.

In conclusion, unpacking standards, backwards mapping, and writing SMART objectives are powerful strategies for designing a curriculum that is standard-aligned, student-centered, task-oriented, rigorous, measurable and exciting. Understanding how these processes work will make me a more effective teacher and my students more engaged, passionate and committed life-long learners.