STAR Review

Today in class the students were doing a Star test review activity. We had the students in groups of 3-4 students for a total of 6 groups . Then we handed each group a question from a released Star test, without the multiple choice answers. The questions were ones that they were unfamiliar with or had not yet learned the content. The purpose in doing this was to have the students force themselves to estimate and think of how they would approach this problem. They were given 2.5 minutes to think on their own and then 4-5 minutes to discuss it with their group members. This was done for all 6 problems.

As I walked around to monitor student work I couldn't help but to notice how the students found it hard to estimate. They weren't comfortable with "guessing" (as they called it). They knew there was an exact answer but weren't confident in their work. They wanted me to check it and tell them that they wer on the right path. For example, one common question/comment I got was "are we going to get the answers for the problem" and "are we going to go over them". Another thing I noticed as I was monitoring was that for some these problems were "easy". I asked why that was and their comments were that they learned it last year but didn't remember it well enough to be certain of their answer.

At the end we had the students reflect on the following 2 questions:
What did it feel like to encounter an unfamiliar problem on your own ad not be able to talk about it?
How did you respond?

In talking about these questions with the class, many felt frustrated or annoyed at the fact they couldn't get help form their peers right away. Especially when some of them had "small" check in questions. However, they realized that like the Star test they had to do it on their own first, thus, it made them feel like they were taking the real test. Another comment that came out of this conversation was "test taking strategies". That we can use the given multiple choice questions to "guess and check". This then lead the conversation to realizing that the test makers sometimes put in answers to trick them. For example, there might be two answers that work but only one of them fits the scenario of the problem. Overall, personally, this activity went very well. The students were engaged in the problems and were collaborating at the appropriate time. Although I did have to remind them to force themselves to work alone for 2.5 minutes. I will definitely do this again when I have my own class.