This past Monday, I opened Matt Miller's (@jmattmiller and @DitchThatTxtbk on X/Twitter) email newsletter to which I'm subscribed, and quickly skimmed the content, like I always do upon initial glance. I tend to see inspirational ideas I want to revisit at a later time, but sometimes I'm so intrigued that I fully read the section of interest on the spot. This was the case on Monday.
The title of the share in question was "Quick Teaching Strategy: Test Talks." Wow! It spoke to me so much so that I read about it on Monday, and tried it out in my class on Tuesday. A quick read with a no-prep idea --- seemingly perfect! Lucky for me, it was indeed an idea that I found practical and potentially beneficial to my learners. Before I briefly explain what the strategy involves, let me thank Matt Miller for sharing this gem that he discovered while reading his feed on Twitter/X. The idea comes from Mathematics instructor, Howie Hua (@howie_hua on X/Twitter.) Many thanks to Howie Hua for sharing his learner-centered testing strategy!
The Original Strategy From a Mathematics Instructor
To engage in a "Test Talk," learners clear their desks, as they normally would do when it is time to begin an assessment. For five minutes, students have the opportunity to skim and scan the test, and then discuss how they plan to tackle the problems. They are only permitted to discuss the test --- no writing is to occur. According to my understanding, this strategy may reduce testing anxiety that learners may feel, especially just before and at the start of an assessment. Additionally, for students who are used to working with classmates, it can serve as another opportunity to collaborate and/or think critically with others.
How It Looked in a High School French Classroom Last Week
Tuesday of this week, my French 3 learners (1 Honors and 2 CP ) were taking a quiz on the imperfect and preterite tenses in French. Both of those past tenses require three steps to successfully write them. For the quiz, I did the "Test Talk" with a modification. I crafted several sentences that were almost identical to the quiz, and then projected them on the smart board. They had 5 or so minutes to discuss the steps they would need to take to successfully write their answers. At the end of the allotted time, I distributed the quizzes, and they worked independently.
Post "Test Talk" Observations
During the "Test Talk" learners who chose to think critically with their peers were fully engaged. Those who chose not to talk to others were looking at the sentences, and thinking about conjugation steps independently. In the honors course, the anxiety levels I observed before I introduced "Test Talk" were noticeably less visible as they began putting pencil to paper. In the college preparatory classes, there are what seems to be a larger number of learners who struggle with or just do not enjoy interpersonal communication, at least as compared to the students I worked with pre-pandemic. Consequently, I didn't see as much of a change in confidence levels when we started the quiz. There was a positive change, but it wasn't to the degree it was in the honors course.
The Survey Says....
While observing everyone take their quiz that day, I stood at my bistro table to observe and watch for any learners with questions, like I always do during assessments, and opened up a Google Form template, and wrote two questions on the experience so as to solicit feedback from the groups. They took the survey on Wednesday (the next day.) Some students were absent and some did not respond. I have about 50 French learners this semester. Below are the results of the survey.
Question 1:
Question 2:
Next Steps
On Thursday (two days after the quiz,) I projected the data on the smart board. As you can see in the results above, this was appreciated by the majority of students. We agreed that we would use this strategy for future assessments. (By the way, back in the fall, I read something on the topic of surveys and how we use (or do not use) the information we receive from our learners. The greatest takeaway was that we have a better chance of building trust and getting buy-in if we share and discuss the results of the surveys we conduct.)
Our next opportunity for "Test Talk," or (insert French accent) "Conversation Interro" will be in a couple of weeks when the fairy tale unit Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) will take place. Learners will be able to spend 5 minutes discussing the writing prompt before we begin.
Again, I would like to thank Howie Hua for sharing this student-centered idea with the world and Matt Miller for writing about it in his informative newsletter. Merci mille fois!
