Technolandy

Day 58 (of 2023/24) a couple thoughts after marking FSAs

BC does not do a lot of ‘whole group’ exams in our province – we have the FSA (Foundation Skills Assessment) done at grade 4 & 7 (reading writing and math – multiple choice component and ‘show your work’ books). They are meant to focus on sharing what previous curriculum is still active in our learners minds (timely that I shared on memory the other day)… but traditionally the tests have been used by 3rd parties to provide rankings of schools, so the tests are often seen as political and many parents do find ways to opt their kids out of writing the tests…  but that isn’t where I am going today… nor am I taking on the senior years Literacy and Numeracy assessments… those are a much bigger, murkier topic…

Today made me reflect that while these tests are examples of the best tests we can provide students, we still find problems and errors with them…

The good: even though I am usually against multiple choice tests in the broadest sense… there are times where they are well crafted – and when the time is taken so that every answer has a reason why it might get chosen… that information can help the teacher know what concepts might be missed – yes, even these tests can be formative… a quick example:

5 x 3 =__

A) 15 (multiplying the numbers together)

B) 8 (adding the digits together – a common mistake)

C) 2 (subtraction, less common but if unfamiliar with the symbols for arithmetic, it can happen)

D) 53 (just putting the digits together… yep, it happens)

Each answer can confirm things worked well, or provide a direction for some re-teaching to take place. Every question goes through this analysis… is then field tested… the test itself is norm referenced and checked for a variety of bias… blah blah blah – there is a lot that goes into the crafting of the annual test. 

But… the bad

We still found some of the questions could easily lead to answers that were beyond what the usual thinker might think… much like the ‘combining two digits’ could be putting the digits together or could mean adding… could even mean multiplying… and all 3 lead to drastically different answers. The good part about the FSA is that because it uses holistic (big picture) assessment, we are not looking for ‘a’ right answer… we are actually happy when we find advanced and divergent thinking when it comes to the maths and reading/writings! 

Though I know many students that we would love to have in our sample won’t write them… for a wide variety of factors – in fact one reason why people will sometimes notice a downward trend in some broad ‘tests’ (like PISA) is because we want all learners to show what they can do – we don’t exclude some because of what we are worried they may produce – we want a more complete and comprehensible story to be digested. Not just a performance piece to make us look good (Canada in general and BC more specifically already do a consistently good job on tests we don’t prepare our kids to have to write… imagine if we did focus on that one skill – but then we would have to do more modelling is that and have more adults take quizzes and tests in their jobs…)

The ugly-ish (to finish the Clint Eastwood movie metaphor)

We also shared that the rigor of writing was noticed… maybe we need to do some more things where we “write” for quantity not quality (but not worksheets with end points – open ended ‘just write’ with only positive feedback no matter how indecipherable it may be (looking at myself in the mirror – until we got a computer the biggest complaint was that my unique personal font was not like everyone else’s times new roman 12… 

We also shared that the logging in for the online component was still  novel experience for many students – and reading/responding online is a distinct skill that maybe needs to be better practiced even in primary years. Take the half hour times to log in (fun lesson plan as librarian/tech teacher: help kids log in. 1 hr) to play first… work later?

Still some work and learning still to be done. I remember my own journeys with FSAs as a full time classroom teacher uncovered some learners who were better at math than they thought – the brain just needed more engaging questions (multi-step); some that showed why they needed prethink time to provide better (more complete) writing samples; and how some would read the questions very carefully “it said to fill the pages with writing – it didn’t say how big of a font it had to be” my son writing (not typing) in huge font to make one word fill four pages… accomplished the goal…

Always more to be done – maybe we should take a closer scan as to what we maybe don’t ‘need’ to keep doing as well… (and yes, many will point to the tests we just spent a lot of time looking at…!) fun time to be in education!