Preparing for Standardized Testing

There are many ways teachers can prepare their students for standardized testing. See below for outside resources, and also things to do in the classroom with the resources available. Keep in mind, "teaching to the test" is not encouraged. Teaching to the standards and having students practice all year through will be what helps them the most.

Review Sample Student Work, Assigning Scores with Rubrics:

Break your classroom up into stations to look at the available sample student work from past MCAS tests. Print out short answer question answers or essays from past MCAS tests in addition to the rubrics that they were graded on. Keep what score the essay or question got hidden from students. In stations, have students look at the work, and assign what score they as a group would give the essay or short answer question according to the rubric. After students have visited the stations, go over the answers together as a class; perhaps have students show on their fingers what score they assigned before revealing the actual score. Students will have questions about why the question or essay was assigned a particular score; for the sake of time, have students pick the top two they want to review, and then read those ones out loud and have an open discussion about what students notice and observe.

Practice Tests:

Practice for ELA MCAS: http://mcas.pearsonsupport.com/student/practice-tests-ela/

Practice for Math MCAS: http://mcas.pearsonsupport.com/student/practice-tests-math/

Practice for Science MCAS: http://mcas.pearsonsupport.com/student/practice-tests-science/

If you have other resources you'd like to share or add, please email Amanda Rodgers at arodgers@winchendonk12.org. Your input is appreciated and valued!