Mike, my kids are taking the exam (for real) this Friday. Crossing my fingers. We had 90% passing so far on the LE regents at SOF (around 100 tenth graders take it every year at SOF). I feel the pressure to get my kids to pass, and maintain my record. AAAAAAAAAHHH!

The way I approach the exam is this: 50% of the exam is on ecology. If they can get those questions down packed, they have a good start. I find it very necessary to have kids review the ecology questions, even thought they received most of the concepts in 7th grade. You won't believe how much they forget. Plus, my colleague that teaches the same course actually sat down and went through 6 years of LE exam questions and group them by category.

My issue is the same like yours - the understanding and use of scientific terms. To address this, I have the kids look at the exam questions, talk about them verbally themselves, and explain their answers through a protocol. This allows them to use the vocabulary as a part of the classroom culture, as well as share strategies. You can say its almost "interactive drill-and-kill", but it gets them practing the questions and adapt the vocabulary.
Annie Chien | Email | Homepage | 01.26.05 - 6:19 pm | #

I'd like to hear more about your protocol for talking about the questions. I won't be starting anything new this week, and going over the questions one at a time in front of the room just doesn't work.

Good luck on Friday and I look forward to hearing how it goes!
Michael Gatton | Email | Homepage | 01.27.05 - 6:25 am | #

Its called "Community Regents Review Protocol"

Basically, an assigned student leader facilitates the class. This person is the key to a successful protocol because he/she needs to be a student who knows the subject matter on a decent level, as well as be articulate, and someone the kids respect - the student leader needs to maintain class order to help reach the goal of reviewing the regents questions. I make this job a "privilege position" - its usually a student who is average to above average in science and who is highly outgoing.

We usually do this for an assignment I give them the night before, a packet of maybe 10-20 questions.

Here is what the students know they need to do:

(1) Student leader sets volunteer list (students come and sign up for a question(s) they want to do.

(2) Each volunteer presents their answer to the problem. They must THINK OUT LOUD their reason behind their answer. NO ONE DISRUPTS THE VOLUNTEER. They must do this in order to get credit.

(3) Student leader directs comments and questions from the class. Then the protocol begins again for the next question.

Usually, each protocol cycle goes on for 2 minutes, depending on the question. I tell the student leader that they have X time to lead the class to complete the review of the packet.

Several things to keep in mind. I take class participation, epecially, quality of the contribution, seriously. So everytime a student volunteers or participates, they get credit in my book. The student leader gets double credit for the day. It is important that I stay quiet throughout the whole process, because its really about them solving the problems themselves and helping each other - and this process is quicker and smoother with an effective student-leader. I only chime in when the class really is clueless about a problem, but always direct my conversation to the student-leader so that he/she can address the class (make a conclusion base on my comments, re-illilterate my comments in his/her own words, etc)

Its been successful so far, and the kids who ususally don't participate seem to find it more comfortable when I step out of the picture. It also gives them a chance to talk and show off their work.

Also, I have a document camera connected to a projector. The document camera projects 3-D objects as is. So, each volunteer would come up and put their problem under the camera to model to the class how they completed the problem. This is especially useful for those graph and short answer questions. You can substitute this with a regular overhead projector. You would just need to make overheads of the homework to prep for this activity.
Annie Chien | Email | Homepage | 01.27.05 - 4:56 pm | #

I also use a Regents exam as the midterm exam for my students. I edit it include only the topics we have covered so far. I then scale the score exactly like the June Regents. I find that this gives the students and I a good idea about their standing for June.
Frank DuRoss Jr. | Email | Homepage | 01.29.05 - 8:21 pm | #

Frank -

I went back & forth on whether to give an edited exam or the whole shebang. Since this is my first year teaching regents and my students are in 8th grade, I had a few objectives in giving the exam in its entirety:

1. Guage how difficult the exam is by figuring out exactly what their scores would be if the exam were given now, letting me know just how much cramming (if any) they would need between February & June. I don't exactly teach content at a blistering pace.
2. Given that I don't cram a lot of content into my teaching, there will likely be questions on the exam that are unfamiliar to the students. I wanted them to experience some frustration and then talk to them about coping with that frustration during the exam, and continuing to do their best in spite of it.
3. Some of the questions that are unfamiliar to my students can be answered by simply reading carefully, bringing in some prior knowledge, and applying some logical thinking skills. For example, I have yet to teach the nervous system. There was a question on the exam about neurotransmitters with an accompanying diagram showing a neurotransmitter binding to a site on a post-synaptic neuron. (June 2004, # 37) All of this is completely foreign to my students, but there were enough visual cues to figure out the answer, or at least make an educated guess. Yet most students got it wrong. So I wanted to use the exam as a way of teaching some basic test taking strategies.

Edited By Siteowner
Michael Gatton | Email | Homepage | 01.30.05 - 11:00 am | #