Red Tape Study Guides

1 thought on “Red Tape Study Guides”

1. Jody

   December 3, 2012 at 7:23 pm

   I do not believe that a “study guide” is required for a formative pop quiz. You are just checking for short-term aural comprehension–not true acquisition. It can’t be studied for. However, for my special ed kids, who have processing difficulties, I need to be more accomodating/lenient on these quizzes–sometimes permitting them to retake them (allowing more time for processing, providing a visual cue, etc.)

   A study guide (for special ed kids) seems appropriate for a summative longer assessment when a “unit of study” has been completed. That unit of study might just be three structures or could be many more, after several stories have been done–and should include all structures from previous units of study since the beginning of the year. A summative unit of study would include all of the activities chosen by the teacher/students to reach a reasonable level of acquisition of those structures: readings, songs, etc.

   To comply with these requests for study guides, I have sent home:
   -a list of the structures covered in your stories and/or flashcards of the structures with the English equivalent on one side and a student-drawn picture of the structure on the target language side of the card
   -copies of all of the readings associated with the new structures
   -copy of the novel (if that’s what we’ve been doing)
   -cd of the novel being read in the TL (This is a BIG one for special ed kids. I always send one home. Some kids/parents actually use these to read along with and tell me it helps.)

   I DO NOT give a date for a reading quiz/test/whatever you want to call it even for special ed kids. I WILL NOT give a reading quiz until I believe everyone in the class has a very good grasp of the material. I want them to feel confident, solid, able, etc.

   This information on this kind of study guide cannot be memorized for regurgitation on a test. My sense, from teaching so many years, is that if a student can read/translate into English all of our readings, knows the structures “cold” when they hear/read them, they’ll do just fine. Some students take advantage of the materials sent home (not many), but they are made available to them and their parents. It has certainly saved my hide a few times.

   The truth is that ALL of my students ask for a study guide because that’s what they get in their other classes before the tests for which they cram for several days/nights before each one. I tell everyone the same thing: Quiz yourself every so often on your flashcards since the first day of school and go over our class readings at home after we’ve done them in class. Re-read the chapters we’ve worked on in class from the novels. Give yourselves as much CI as you can. My four percenters do it. My social butterflies and slugs do not. My special edders do it if their parents/tutors are on board.

   My message to kids (special edders included) is that their “attention” and “letting me know when they need repetition, clarification, etc.” on the FRONT side will relieve them of “having to study” , “re-do” or “fail” on the BACK side. After a while, they start to believe me when they see the results. They have no other classes that work like ours.

   What I love the most is the relaxed attitude my students grow into about “testing” in the class. They KNOW I won’t test them on stuff we haven’t worked on A LOT, so they just don’t sweat it when the papers get passed out. They just get to work. If I give them a quiz that most of them bomb, I throw it out. I messed up; they didn’t. I haven’t had complaints about tests/quizzes in so long; I can’t remember. That’s good. It did take a while since mine is the only class where testing takes place without previous notice.

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