Interview with Teaching Professional continued...

I interviewed a current teacher about what she thought about the PSSA's.

Q: What are some strategies to teaching to the PSSA test and how do you carry them out in a classroom?
A: Discovering facts for one. I teach them to pull facts out of various paragraphs and to underline/circle them as they read. By forcing them to pull facts from the text, they can more easily draw connections and better understand the point of the text. I then make them create some inferences about what they read. For example, in preparation for the crucible, I ask the students to decide how the language affects the story. That is, I model the language from the PSSA’s so they become familiar with it. In addition, I also “create a lesson based on content”. I take some important content from the test and I prepare a lesson or two on it. I teach this to the students where I find it necessary or where it fits into the curriculum. Layering is also a good suggestion. Layer information for the students! I also suggest giving the students various samples of information, genres, writing prompts etc. You really have to go “above and beyond then pull the connection” in order to reach these kids. My last lesson was based on teaching travel narratives. Not only are the students looking at and understanding the genre and various samples of it, but they are also analyzing text and writing a paper in proper format. This lesson supports the PSSA because the test asks the students to understand genre, analyze text and write their own pieces of literature with proper structure and format.

Q: Do you introduce topics and units as, “We will be doing ­­­________ in preparation for the PSSA test? If not, how do you approach it?
A: We have PSSA’s coming up soon, so we have been preparing for a while now. What we do is “take all of the strategies we learned this year and apply them to the PSSA’s”. For example, the students just had a quarterly exam in which the questions were modeled off of the PSSA’s. The students had to understand the text, find the facts, draw conclusions and make inferences before they could answer any of the questions on the test. I made it impossible for them to be able to answer the questions without reading the entirety of the text. I give them plenty of time in class and as long as they apply the strategies we have been using the past few months, they will earn a good grade.

Interview with Teaching Professional

Q: What would you personally change about the PSSA’s and why?
A: I wish it had more open-ended questions instead of so many multiple choice questions. As objective as the questions may be, there are multiple things to get out of it”. Students can look at a simile and think they know what it means but get confused when the answer they had in mind is not an option. They get extremely flustered.

Q: In one sentence, how do you teach to the test without teaching to the test?
A: “Go above and beyond and connect it to the test”.

Q: What is the hardest part of teaching the test/administering the test?
A: Making the students care about the test is the most difficult part for me. There are no stakes for the students so they definitely do not take the test as serious as they should. Plus, state-to-state, the standards are so different so there is almost no bearing on the results. Students just see the PSSA test as a test they have to take. They do not consider it as important, let’s say, as an in-class test they will receive a grade on.

Q: Would you abolish the PSSA test if you could? Why or Why not?
A: I would not necessarily abolish them, I would refine them. First of all, I would make standards universal across all the states so that when the states compare the scores, everyone is placed on the same scale. For one, “ESL student should NOT have to take the test nor should the Special Education students”. They need to create tests specifically for ESL and Special Education students if they want to assess their comprehension and knowledge. It is completely unfair that those students are graded on the same scale of the other students. I might even raise the stakes on the test if it were up to me!