Security Breach: Testing and Cell Phones

Summative Assessments are an essential part of education.  Standardized testing is the wave of the future.  Testing is not going away.

Cell phones are another thing not going away.  Most students I teach have smartphones.  In an unofficial survey of my class more than 68% of the students had a smart phone.  Students are tied to their phones for social reasons and parents are adamant about maintaining constant contact with their students (not to mention protecting their students' expensive cell phone).

There is a great deal of turbulence where testing and cell phone use overlap.  In a recent staff meeting one of the APs showed us a screenshot of last year's STAR Results.  Under the heading, in bright red letters reads the following:

A security breach involving social media exposure of 2013 STAR test material has been confirmed at this school site. This school is not eligible for state or federal award recognition during the 2013–14 school year.

Apparently a student took a selfie with the cover of the STAR booklet.  It may seem petty, but under no circumstances is any part of the test allowed to be reproduced; the integrity of the test depends on it.

Now the school is trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again.  One of the big hurdles will be establishing and enforcing rules that run contrary to school culture.  Teachers seldom have established procedures for preventing students from using cell phones during quizzes and exams.  Most of the time it's a verbal warning: "Don't use your cell phone during the exam."  Students and parents push back when cell phone use is infringed.

The ideas for preventing a "security breach" ranged from a school-wide ban on cell phones to buying a cell phone pouch grid that can be mounted to the wall.  I don't know what the official position of the school will end up being, but the whole topic highlighted the benefit of matching my classroom cell phone policy with that of standardized testing.

Folks get riled up when expectations are tightened unexpectedly.  Setting expectations from the beginning of the school year seems to be the best way to prevent a tornado of angry emails.  Once the standard is established students and parents will feel more at-ease when it comes to standardized testing time.

In Mr. Davis' Science Classroom, cell phones will be welcome tools for research and analysis, but unwelcome for classic quizzes and exams in accordance with standardized test rules.

Grading Your Assignments: No, You Can't Use Pink Ink

I've successfully graded two periods of labs!  I have another period to do today, but here are a few thoughts.

• Pink ink is nice...if you're 7.  And drawing unicorns.  Pink ink on a lab report is not nice.  Ever.
  Plus, it clashes with my Stipula Calamo Red Fountain Pen Ink I'm using to grade.
• There is an obvious connection between the quality of the question to the quality of an answer.
  There was another variable that I hadn't considered.  The questions I asked in class are very different than the questions asked on the lab and this changed caused confusion.  There's a middle ground somewhere; I need to be able to ask better questions, but questions on the lab need to be modified to be a bit more user-friendly.
• As I grade the students, I grade my own instruction.
• Writing is a window to the mind.  Mostly.  A majority of students demonstrated a clear grasp of the information; some demonstrated a clear misunderstanding.  However, there were some students that I know understand the content but performed poorly on the response questions.  I think that modifying the questions a bit will help these students communicate what they know.  

Possible Solutions

At the beginning of the year, I do plan on spending extra class time to prepare the students for the year, and even the rest of their education.  I can think of two ways that may help.  First is to show students how to examine a question.  If they understand the question, they can better answer it.  Second is to set expectations for some of the repeated things we'll do in class.  Glitter gel pens: bad.  Bic Blue: good.  One-word answers: bad.  Thorough answers in complete sentences: good.

A Final Note

It seems like students are used to answering low-level questions or receiving completion grades on assignments in the past.  Spending a few periods at the beginning of the year may help show students that comprehension is good, but we'll also need to learn how to analyze, make connections, and communicate their knowledge.

Survival of the Sittest

If you ever want to instigate a fight among a flock of teachers, simply ask their thoughts about seating charts.

Should we let the students pick their own seats?  Should we sit them alphabetically?  When should we change the seating chart?  Should we sit them boy/girl?  Oh, the controversy!

Based on a rather unscientific method and unsound statistics, I have stumbled across a solution:

1. At the beginning, sit students alphabetically.  Done!
2. Move talkative students as needed.
3. Move students at their request, if you can.

My master teacher and I were discussing the seating chart.  We have found that there are several knots of students that may benefit from a seat rearrangement.  This led us to a bigger question of moving all of the students.  I asked whether the students even wanted to move.  Neither of us had ever considered this at all.  So, in each class, we put it to a vote.  

The overwhelming majority of students wanted to keep their seats.  Only two or three in each class said they wanted to change.  I was surprised at this response, but when I thought about my own preferences, it made sense.

So, we saved a great deal of time and headache by moving only a few students around.  The students are happy, we're happy, and classroom homeostasis was achieved.