Test Walks

Back in January, I was wracking my brain about how to make assessments go better in my classes; there was too much stress, too much concentration on the wrong things: it felt too much like a big bad test that everyone should be stressed out about. So I thought to myself, what if they could take a break, take a walk, talk about the test, get rid of misconceptions and jitters, etc. 
And that's what we did. 

Evolution:
Phase 1
I didn't really have a good idea about how to do this the first time, so I was kind of loose with everything.
"Work on the test for 10 minutes, then we'll take a walk. Come back, work for another 30, we'll do it again. then 20 minutes to finish."
The idea here was to have some time to get into it, then ask questions that might have come up, then some more work, then final questions.
I didn't talk or answer any questions. I let students take notebooks and pencils with them, and bring them back into the room.

Tried a little something to ameliorate test-stress: Test walks!
Look at the problems.
Take a walk and talk about them.
Work on them.
Take another walk, ask some questions.
Great ss feedback, not sure how they did yet...https://t.co/et7GW5owOD#teach180 #mtbos #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/cqAV2lO2RO

— Jonathan Lind (@lindjonath) January 31, 2018

Some heated discussions and a lot of helping hands on this second try at a test walk. https://t.co/s4gqylGtP0#teach180 #mtbos #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/Ft2BE0BN6j

— Jonathan Lind (@lindjonath) February 6, 2018

Student Feedback
After each class's first test walk, I asked for some feedback about the process:

Ok, nothing really shocking there. I used the "cheating" results to have some conversations about why I write assessment questions the way I do, why I ask for so much from one question, why my assessments are only 1-2 questions.

The next few questions on the survey gave me some more interesting feedback (summarizing and cherry-picking some results here).

Did anything bother you about taking a break during the test?

1. lots of "no"s, "it was too cold", "it was too noisy", "more time"  --meh
2. Sometimes it got even more confusing because you would mix what the other person was saying to you with what you already thought.​ / The break lead me to panic and question myself about whether I got the concept.​ --I get this and was surprised that there weren't more like these. I'm hoping that they get more confident as they go on, or learn to ignore others or have productive discussions if they're pretty sure of themselves.
3. if we would have been allowed to take our test around or have been able to view it during our break, it would have been even more helpful. But I understand why you won't do that, it is a test after all. --Glad they understand :)
4. Not really, except people screaming. --Hmm, discussions too heated? I must have missed this :)
5. everyone either crowded around one person and I couldn't help but feel bad for the person in the middle. / I think we should have groups while walking outside. Otherwise everyone gets on one person. --This was something I should have worked harder to address. It was a big problem in one class (which I'll discuss later), but not so much in the others.
6. Stopping in the middle of a problem. --a couple of different variations of this one. I think Phase 3 takes care of it.

 Is there anything you really liked about taking a break during the test? 

1. If you had any confusions they could be cleared out / seeing different methods / noticing mistakes  --alot of this
2. Stress relief / helped me cool down / feeling of comfort that you could still get help / fresh air --and this
3. I couldn't understand what to do in the test and my classmates explained the question for me. --and this
4. I think this was the first test I actually took happily and didn't panic or anything and just overall it was very different but I believe this would overall as a class improve and help everyone understand better
5. It acted as a type of kickstart to get me started on completing the test on my own
6. Yes, it felt a lot less stressful and it felt like the teacher understood where students were coming from.
7. It was good to see that a lot of people didn't understand what was happening just like you didn't. --umm, ok? I think? Maybe not ok?

Describe any suggestions you have for how we can make tests less stressful.

1. more time / more breaks --Eh, I put a lot of thought into time limits, and I think there are always going to be people who ask for more. Part of "Proficient" for me means efficient, confident, and prepared enough to show some solid understanding on a single problem in 20 minutes or so.
2. extra credit / MCQs / more questions but easier questions  / traditional math tests / grading scale gripes (summative assessments are worth at least 85% in my class) / only one topic at a time / fewer tests  -- Meh! spent all first semester discussing these things. Not gonna happen.
3. We can practice the types of questions on the test so it's not a surprise and much harder on the test. / More time and review the topics in the the class before the test. / Maybe more practice questions similar to the ones on the test. Like with the same type of wording and format.-- I did start doing this more, maybe to a further degree than I'm really comfortable with as I reflect here. Part of "Proficient" for me also means being able to apply math you know in unfamiliar situations.
4. We can take tests in pairs? --Couple of these. I'm interested in this idea, but not with these students, at least not yet. Academic dishonesty has been too much of an issue this year.
5. We could not call them tests but rather anything else.  --I'm trying, man! "Summative Assessment" is just so many damn syllables, it's never gonna catch on!
6. The rubric is quite confusing and vague, it would be nice to have examples of what a 1:4, and so on look like specifically for the topic we are doing -- Yup, that would be nice. Working on it.

Phase 2:
Teachers with more foresight than me probably know exactly what went wrong with this: some students used the breaks, especially the last one, to just copy each others work. Of course they did!

The process with the rest of the classes in this first round of tests allowed us to have some great discussions about how to show your understanding (and how to show that it's YOUR understanding).

​I pretty quickly stopped letting students take notes or any paper with them, instead sending a basket of whiteboards and markers with them that got erased before they came back into class. I also got rid of the second break: work 10 minutes, 10 minutes to discuss, 40 minutes for the rest of the test.

Results?
I don't have really good data on this. Visual modeling increased, but also paragraphs of writing where some good algebra steps would do just fine. "Less tell, more show!" became my most often used comment on assessments.
I think it "felt" better, at least to me. At least most of the time. It also gave me some more freedom (along with some more directed test-prep on my part) to ask more open-ended questions: "Make up your own triangle and solve it to show me you understand trigonometry". 

Then there was
The oblique asymptote incident:
So, one of my precal sections, my "difficult" class, last period of the day, test over rational expressions and functions, Illustrative Math question about fuel efficiency...

In this class, I have one student who's way ahead of everyone, a transfer this year from another school where his algebra 2 class covered most of what I have to cover to meet the needs of the students here. He's the "go to guy" during test walks, the one the other students crowd around. He and I had had a discussion about a similar problem, and and how to tie the idea of an oblique asymptote to the context and the solution. It wasn't something that most of the students were ready for, but he was. Here's some of the nonsense I got back on this test:

I threw these and a few others into a presentation (yes, along with some positive things, too) and used it to have a very pointed discussion about cheating. I also found ways to remove this student from the conversation during walks (by having my own conversation with him) so that the others wouldn't get distracted by things they're not ready for.

Phase 3:
I settled on a 3 minute reading period (look over the test and strategize: no talking, no writing, no calculators) followed by a 10 minute walk before each test, with whiteboards if students want to use them. Some students still try to memorize the entire problem and get classmates to give them the "answer" (whatever that means), but this is where I think I can feel comfortable. This is what I did for the rest of the year.

Reflection: Why do this?
Test walks are a pain in my ass, mostly because they cause me to spend so much time thinking about and watching for academic dishonesty. I'm not sure if they really help with assessment results because I'm too lazy to do a real look into the scores, and my records aren't good enough to call this useful data yet. I still have assessments where the majority of students miss the mark completely and/or give nonsense answers to questions. 

I do this, and I'm going to continue to do this, because of the mathematical discourse it produces. The "pressure" of these discussions produces the best mathematical discussions I ever get to witness, even from the students who are the most disengaged in the classroom. Students argue their case, critique the reasoning of their classmates, ask questions, and don't stop asking until they get it. On one of the last walks this year I tried to capture this in a video. It's kind of hard to hear what they're saying, but you could probably get the idea with the sound off.

So, the question I'm working on now is: How do I get this kind of engagement as a normal part of my classroom... without having to give a test every day!