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In our climate the ability to demonstrate mastery of course objectives on a written test has never been more paramount. From upcoming class exit tests, to the FCAT and SAT... the ability to test well has never been more important to students. Our process demands a great deal from students, teachers and parents but is designed to improve student testing skills. We believe that by maintaining rigorous standards, in a nurturing environment, with the appropriate support systems in place that all kids can be successful! With this section we'll be sharing the objective results from our tests in class. It's really not a blog as comments aren't enabled, we welcome your feedback but monitoring online comments can be quite a chore when working with teenagers in the information age. Click here for more information on our testing process.
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Test 5 Ch 6 - Rocks & The Rock Cycle |
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We took our fifth test on Ch. 6 covering the essentials of rocks, rock formation and the rock cycle. This unit was unique in that the students were divided up into groups and allowed to develop presentations to teach that section and it's major concepts to the class.
As it was the first of it's type this year we encountered much of what one would expect, inefficiency within groups, some group members not contributing, some groups poorly prepared, and stuggled with the background information. On the other hand, there were a few groups that did execptionally well and with their presentations and obviously learned from the process so if we can work out the negatives, it's likely something that we will do again.
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Test 4 - Ch. 5 - Minerals of the Earth's Crust |
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Our fourth test covered the two sections of Chapter 5 on the minerals of the eath's crust, types, structure, characteristics and identification. With the poor results from our last effort we were all rather looking forward to the shortened content for the assessment and most students really took advantage of it as evidenced by the outstanding scores for most on the first test.
A change that we made in the practice tests, using more language and examples directly from the final assessment, combined with the increase in the usage of the practice tests outside of class appears to be a mixed blessing. We're happy that students spent more time in preperation but are concerned that the results are probably inflated by students taking the practice test repeatedly in an effort to memorize the test items. There were a few students that finished the test in record time that scored extraordinarily well.
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Test 2 - Earth Structure, Systems & Energy |
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We took our second formal test of the year on Monday, Sept. 28th which covered the major concepts in chapter two of our text which introduced: the general earth structure, it's systems & energy. We expected to see some difficulty from students on the objectives, as it was there first assessment on material that was totally new to them and there was probably a false sense of security, for most, in scoring well on the first test with little outside preparation. These results more closely resemble what we've seen at the beginning of the last couple of years but still exceed former classes initial assessments. |
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Test 3 - Earth Locations, Earth Chemistry |
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Our third test, the first of the second grading period focused on two chapters and proved to be a challenge for everyone. Chapter 3 focused on latitude, longitude, magnetic declination and topographic maps. Chapter 4 focused on the periodic table, atoms, elements, compounds and mixtures. As our testing process takes so much time we decided to try to do fewer tests covering more content and based on these results it certainly won't be repeated until we get closer to the end of the term. We knew that students would have to retain more information so we ramped up the support to include practice tests on each section and voluntary tutoring after school on Wednesdays. Unfortunately most students did not take advantage of either and the results were very poor.(a total of five students showed up for either of the study sessions and only ten students bothered to take the practice quizzes from home) |
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Test 1 - Science, Earth Science & The Scientific Method |
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We had our first official test of the year on Wednesday Sept. 9th which covered the major concepts in chapter one: the nature of science, what is earth science, the branches of earth science and the scientific method. Granted, the material isn't as difficult as some that we will be covering and the nature of science and the scientific method should be familiar to students already but we were quite pleased at the initial effort. We've been tracking this type of data for while now and these are among our best results for a first test! |
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