Bridging students’ daily classroom learning with the distinct thinking skills required by standardized assessments will allow educators to focus on equipping students with the thinking, practice, and strategies needed to meet these demands.
Many states provide released items that give examples of how the students will need to demonstrate their knowledge of their grade-level standards.
Jennifer Lawson
It’s important to give students opportunities to be exposed to and practice these question types, to minimize struggles with attacking these technology-enhanced items.
While the focus of everyday learning should be centered around students understanding and practicing essential grade-level standards through explicit and systematic instruction, released items can serve as a resource to check if students are able to apply particular standards in a different, more synthesized context.
Lorem ipsum
The goal of this work is not just to answer the questions, but to strengthen the cognitive skills required to attend to the text and understand what each question is asking.
Teachers can plan for this at the start of an instructional unit by using released items to craft practice questions that help students build the internal thinking processes needed to approach these tasks with confidence.
A thinking checklist can support students in developing the metacognitive habits necessary to manage the multistep demands of standardized tests.
