LA9 PAT Prep: UBD UX

(Language Arts 9 Provincial Achievement Test Preparation: User-Based Design, User Experience)

Language Arts 9 Provincial Achievement Test Preparation: Universal (learning) By Design User Experience

When it comes to preparing for end-of-year assessments, as in so many areas, I recommend people follow writer Douglas Adams’ advice: Don’t Panic. As in his science fiction novel A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it’s a comforting reminder in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, both which are part of these kinds of exams. Chaos can be found in the emotions of teachers, students, and parents alike. Uncertainty about how to best support and prepare learners with distinct backgrounds, identities, experiences, and skill levels to perform successfully in a wildly artificial and singular task runs high. While it might seem absurd to stress so much about a test that was designed to measure a cohort and not the individual, the reality is this is how tests like PATs and Diplomas have come to be perceived. So, what can we do?

The best way to avoid panic is to build in practice throughout the semester or year, well in advance of such an exam, so that students are familiar, confident, and able to roll into the test ready to show all that they are capable of doing. Don’t panic: plan ahead by practicing applying the skills that will be needed and working these as well as other learner ‘muscles’ to build strength and endurance for those final tasks. Here are a few ways I prepare my LA9 students for their PAT that you can use to build your own practice and process.

1. Take it in laps

2. Plan for short- and long-term growth

3. Celebrate accomplishment to build endurance

How to take it in laps:

Teacher researcher and author Kelly Gallagher writes often about the concept of using laps, or repeated rounds of instruction and learning application, to support student growth. We (usually) can’t be amazing at something the first time we do it. It’s unreasonable to expect that kind of performance, and sets students up for high-pressure stressful responses. Instead, offer learners multiple experiences or ‘laps’ of the same skills. Your struggling students will have time to gain mastery, as will the high-flyers have time to perfect and polish.

For me, this looks like undertaking the major tasks of a final summative assessment ideally three times throughout the learning period. My year-long LA9s will write a business email (letter) to me introducing themselves to create a baseline and starting point, another email to communicate their research and make a call to action following a research unit, and write a final email to a character or author before tackling the same task on their PAT. I’ll provide the context, and design these tasks so they need to practice using a variety of voices (personal, professional, hybrid of a personal and critical) and related these writings to tasks with which they have deeply engaged. I have a similar approach with the essay/ narrative written task as well, and we consistently work on reading comprehension in a variety of forms (personal novel reading and discussion for pleasure, critical reading and study of short stories, non-fiction, and scripts, creative crafting, and of course multiple choice selected response at times). The repetition is where the mastery can be built. By returning to the same skills from new angles students can grow, polish, and perfect without feeling like the target is constantly moving away from them. This also allows me time and opportunity to assess not just their growth but their most current achievement, which may impact the course they take after mine related to what they can now do and are now ready to tackle.

How to plan for short and long-term growth:

Looking at my learners’ work through an assessment lens is a way that I can tailor my feedback to my students’ needs and avoid doing work in unhelpful or exhausting ways. If you are finding yourself red-inking in great detail every single document that comes across your teacher desk, you are probably wondering how the heck this will be sustainable. The truth is, it’s not – but if you can isolate the skills you are looking at and relating your feedback to, your students will get the same amount of practice while you target your support with short- and long-term needs in mind.

That first email or letter my 9s write? I’m looking for their voice – who are you as a writer? To what degree can you communicate your thoughts? Does your response address the topic or questions? How’s your logic and thought progression reading off the page? I’m also building relationships, so I respond in kind – to YOU, about what YOU have shared, what I appreciate about what YOU have shared. I can note for myself what you and I can be working on to take things to the next level.

The second email is going to be about structure and content. I’ll offer recognition and even compliments about where and how you are succeeding in this kind of task, and how you can lean into that more deeply as you keep moving forward. I want you to know what you know, and help you see what you can add or do or think of in the future.

The third email can then focus on completing and developing your ability to deliver high-quality work in response to a specific task.I want my students to understand: YOU’RE going to be given a context, a situation, a choice, and a voice to use. I want YOU to know how and where YOU can best execute YOUR skills in this situation. There are areas that YOU can best showcase what YOU are capable of, some if not all, and understanding what you are being tasked to do is vital to that showcasing.

This kind of feedback progression cuts down on marking, because I know exactly what I’m looking for with each ‘lap’ or round of practice. I don’t need to red-ink everything you are doing incorrectly, either – I know this feels demoralizing, and makes it more difficult to know what you are doing well. I can instead see those patterns in the class group, and target mini-lessons and editing steps in those areas instead of spending my weekend correctly your commas or capitals. My students get to see their successes and focus on growing those areas without getting overly bogged down in what might feel most difficult to them.

How to celebrate accomplishment to build endurance:

These rounds of instruction and practice allow me to tailor my test prep to activities that feel more authentic and connected to real-world needs and situations. It helps me build my students’ understanding of the nature of the exam and the tasks they will be asked to complete. By the time they get to those tasks, they will have done those multiple times, received feedback through and following each round, and they will know where and how they are skilled and capable. They will also have treated their brains to endorphins, specifically task-completion dopamine release, following the completion of each round. This has trained their brain to complete – the celebration that follows has rewarded them – and this supports the endurance needed to complete these tasks.

True, I, and probably most teachers, would not require our students to perform in class as we do on these tests. Tackling two or three major assignments that might normally extend for days or weeks in one go is asking a lot. Very few adults have likely had to write extensive, multi-hours-long, multi-task assessments. Unless you’ve sat the Bar exam or medical exams, your longest and most intensive tests may have been the up to four-hour-long English Language Arts PAT or six-hour-long ELA Diploma (or OSSLT, SAT or other lengthy high school testing equivalent). Perhaps this, like measurement impact slippage, is another element of absurdity. Even so, engraving the practice of embracing celebration in our students brains shapes that plastic to finish and finish strong. Whether it’s a half hour of board game play, an outdoor walk, a potluck, or some other kind of treat, recognizing students efforts with feedback and marking their completion in an impactful way can help them get in the practice of doing the best they can at each and every opportunity.

I know I and so many of us want to design learning experiences to fit our learner’s needs, and that large-scale assessment pressures can make the best of us feel beholden to an inauthentic-feeling required tasks with hoops that feel cumbersome to complete or manage.

It doesn’t have to be that way – there are SO many ways we can support our learners without forcing them to endure the test situation again and again. By designing your learning at micro and macro levels to build the skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed for exams like the LA9 PAT, you are preparing your students to roll into those tests and feel empowered to show just what they are capable of, without centering the test in ways that creates stress instead of reduces it.

What do you do to manage test anxieties, and how do you like to prepare learners for these kinds of tasks and situations? I’d love to hear your ideas, and your questions! Together we can find solutions to take care of our students and ourselves.