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| courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain |
Can anything put the fear into a middle school student like
knowing they have a science test coming up? Well, okay, knowing they have a
math test coming up might be more fearful to them. But, a science test is still
a pretty fearful thing.
Even a science test that they’ve known about for a week, that
they’ve been prepared for in excruciating detail, and that they’d reviewed for
in depth just the day before is enough to keep some of them home for the day.
In my home room today there were four students absent. Two of them were a
surprise, but two of them I more or less expected to miss at least my class.
This particular test was an OBONCM Test. OBONCM is my acronym
for Open Book, Open Notes, Closed Mouth Test. I occasionally use this type of
test because the students know that if they prepare for it well enough, and
work on it as they should, they can score at or near 100%. Only through a
dedicated desire to do poorly can a student get a bad grade on this type of
test.
Questions on the test were a mixture of eight vocabulary, eleven
multiple choice, and one short essay question. One sure sign the students are
working hard on a test is how long it takes before the first person finishes.
The first person didn’t finish this test until well into the period.
One of the things I’ve observed about this cohort of students is
their inability to apply what they learn in one situation to another situation.
For example: when taking notes on the subject tested ty students learned how
certain vital minerals such as calcium and phosphorous are stored in the
skeleton. On the test they were asked a multiple choice question about where in
the body those minerals were stored. Skeleton was not one of the choices but
bones was. One young man raised his hand and told me the correct answer wasn’t
one of the choices. I assured him it was and prompted him to think about what the
skeleton was made of.
The last student to finish completed the test with ten minutes
left to go in the period. Now they have a little free time to relax and
decompress after the unspeakable horror of The Science Test.
As always, I remain,
The Exhausted Educator
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