Dumping a Science Test

In 14 years of teaching I've seen many practices change. Many for the better. Some for the worse. One pattern that has remained consistent is the end of unit test. Or assessment if you want to sound fancy and quiz if you want to sound chill.

It's all the same though, right? We finish up teaching a topic or set of skills, then we do something to see if the students did, in fact, learn said topic or set of skills. Some of them will, some won't. Observant, student-centered classroom teachers will already know who's ready and who isn't. We will modify the test ahead so it's more reflective of what skills a student is prepared to demonstrate. We will reflect with them afterwards, celebrate what they do know, and set up plans for continued practice and instruction where needed.

I've done and still do these things. But I'm not confident that I should be and I'm not entirely sure what I should be doing about it.

As mandated school, county, and state standardized testing has increased, I've pulled back a lot on my classroom tests. One reason is, frankly, there's not enough time. With the increase in volume of required, time-consuming tests (most of which take 60-75 minutes to administer), less time is leftover for actual teaching, not to mention assessing, of skills within the classroom. In addition, the value placed on the results of mandated tests over classroom assessments makes it difficult to justify time and energy to implement my own tests. Especially when those results will not be taken into much consideration in the long run. Why ask the teacher what the student knows if a computer can generate that answer for you?

And, finally, I just don't like tests.

The term popped up as I was cruising my Twitter feed this past week (and I'd love to cite the owner but I can't seem to find it again, my apologies). The phrase was "brain dump". The original writer described it as students writing down everything they know about a topic as a replacement for a multiple choice or essay assessment of skills.

On Thursday I floated this idea to my 4th graders as we reached the end of our study on Planets and Stars in Science class. I said, "When I give you a test, all I'm trying to do is see what you know from our work on a topic." Yeah, yeah... "But the way I usually do that is by asking you a question and seeing if you know that exact piece of information. You may know many other things but you might not know the one thing I ask. And that doesn't seem like the best way to understand what you know, now that I think about it." Uh huh. Go on. "So what if we tried this thing called a Brain Dump? I'll give you one sheet of big paper and 15 minutes, and you use pictures, words, or phrases to demonstrate what you know about our topic."

You mean we write whatever we know?
We can use pictures?
We get to decide what goes on it?
This will be our test?

"Yeah. You guys in?"

They were.

The next day we got out our science notebooks in which we'd been recording research and shared activities, a pencil, and a sheet of big paper (about 8.5" by 20"). For ambiance, I put on a space instrumental YouTube scene. And I set the timer for 15 minutes.

I really had no idea what to expect, but the kids were fired up. We started with 2 minutes of fast and furious writing, at that point I shouted out a "word blast", dropping a vocabulary term that had come up in our studies as a prod or reminder about something they may have forgotten. I gave them 4 other "word blasts" throughout the time block. At 5 minutes and 12 minutes, they got a "1 minute peek" where they could open their resource notebooks for a reminder or a new idea they hadn't thought of yet. At the 10-minute mark, I gave them a 2-minute "check in with a friend". During that 2 minute window, they could jump up and collaborate with someone else in the room.

They worked until the timer went off, put their pencils down, and automatically started sharing their Brain Dump sheets with neighbors. Exclamations of "I got that, too!" and "Oh man! I forgot all about that. I can't believe I didn't think of it!" floated around the room.

I have one particular student who shuts down in response to any given test. He will leave it blank or simply never submit his paper or online test. Any prodding or support during the test receives a shrug and an "I don't know" but little else. His Brain Dump had a beautifully drawn version of the solar system complete with craters (correctly labeled with the term) on the moon, rings on Saturn, and lines to indicate Uranus's irregular rotation. And, most significantly, a big smile on his face at the end of the period.

This wasn't a perfect assessment. I am not sure if anything is. I think the time limit made it fun and a little exciting, but certainly limited the results and disadvantaged those who work more slowly. By implementing a time limit, I certainly can't claim to have a demonstration of all each student knows. And I'm not entirely sure how to grade it. Or if I even want to.

Why devalue any of this work by scoring it and thus ranking it against others?

So I probably won't. Instead I'll write a note to each student, recognizing his/her knowledge demonstrated by the Brain Dump and encouraging further research in 1-2 particular areas.

This is what always happens to me and is the concrete reminder that I don't do well administering tests, scores, and grades to my learners. I prefer to end Social Studies units with Socratic Seminars and role play discussions (my favorites come from the Zinn Education Project). I take notes on their engagement, thoughtful comments, and questions, but can never bring myself to calculate a score. And don't even get me started on projects! Students create work that they are so deeply proud of, that reflect what they've learned, or attempted to express and somehow the rubrics I meticulously made end up in the trash.

My question now is, do we really need the test? If we can create classrooms where learning occurs for the sake of learning, rather than to pass a test, wouldn't that ultimately be better? And if my current reality of local and state testing aren't going anywhere, then wouldn't my best shot of creating that kind of learning atmosphere be to eliminate tests within my classroom?