Creating Tests: Please share lessons learned

[Penguin]

I will be homeschooling high school for the first time next year. We have multiple homegrown courses. I will need to create tests, and would appreciate any BTDT words of wisdom. Really. Anything from your overall philosophy to a nitty-gritty tidbit.

 

What if you realize that the test, not the student, failed?!

 

For the humanities, I am leaning toward Charlotte Mason inspired exams. Meaning that the emphasis is "Show me what you know."

 

Science has me stumped. What constitutes a good science test? SAT subject tests and at least one AP science are in this student's four-year plan if that helps.

[Vida Winter]

For home-grown classes,

Chapter quizzes instead of midterm/final exams

Quizzes may contain combination of fill-in, multiple choice, and essay

Worked problems on math/chem/physics quizzes

Lowest quiz grade dropped

Part of overall grade should be class participation/projects.

Consider giving credit for keeping an organized notebook.

 

If you are thinking about SAT subject test and AP, work sample tests in prep books and consider prep sites like InstantCert

[LisaKinVA]

For literature, tests should (imo) be essay/discussion related at the high school level.  You can use something like Spark Notes or Cliff Notes, as well as some free resources on the internet to come up with some good questions.  The idea is to have them grapple with the literature and themes in the literature rather than regurgitate facts (the protagonist was, the antagonist was...). 

 

For history, there are several shorter papers during the year (at least one per month), as well as mapwork.  Since older son will also be preparing for SAT Subject Test, and maybe APUSH, we may incorporate some of the practice tests into my testing strategy, or use some review materials to create a testing framework.  There will be some map studies tests, but again, most of the tests will incorporate essays -- although some general knowledge fill-in-the-blank (mostly) will be expected.  I don't create good multiple choice tests.  They seem to be the easiest to screw up (answers are either too hard or too easy to distinguish).  

 

In math/science, the best advice I received was to take an Old Edition text (or a different text) from what is being used and use questions from their review/chapter tests/practice sets to create my own tests and quizzes.  This doesn't work for science for BJU/Apologia/Abeka sciences though...because the scope & sequences of these texts vary substantially from their secular counterparts.  

 

Anyhow, that's my plan.

[regentrude]

A few thoughts:

1. Tests are not the only way to demonstrate mastery.

I do not give tests in humanities; I base the evaluation of the student's mastery on writing assignments or oral presentations.

 

2. Don't write timed tests unless you really have a lot of experience in writing tests for that subject.

It takes an immense amount of expertise to judge the amount of time a student will need under test conditions. I am saying this as a college instructor with more than a decade of teaching experience - even we misjudge sometimes the difficulty level of a test.

I would highly recommend giving untimed tests.

 

3. Don't reinvent the wheel.

If you want to give tests in science or math, precise formulation of problems is essential. Draw on the test banks or problems provided by your textbook. A nice shortcut is to have a second textbook from which to assign the worked  out examples; this gives you an instantaneous detailed solution key.

 

4. Know when to outsource testing.

Assigning partial credit required the grader to understand the problems and to judge whether a particular mistake is grave and signifies lack of understanding or is simply a small arithmetic error that merits a lesser deduction.

I do not feel that multiple choice tests are a good tool for evaluating students; evaluating students based on fully worked problems gives a much clearer picture. Depending on your expertise, this may or may not be possible for you.

 

5. Know what your learning goal is before you test.

For example, I find long term mastery and retention in math crucial. Thus, I won't give a bunch of little tests that just test the concept of the week, but comprehensive exams that test the material of an entire semester or year, because that is what I need my student to know, not just the topic studied currently.

 

6. Probably THE best way to truly discern mastery is an oral exam (which, in science or math, would include problem solving while narrating the solution.)

[AmyontheFarm]

I like www.quizlet.com to help create quick quizzes for my kids. 

 

Take the Title of the text, the author's name whatever you can google and put it into the search box of quizlet and see what comes up.  Always verify if the questions, vocabulary, or answers are correct because sometimes a student enters things in and they might not put in the complete answer, just what they needed to jog their memory.

[beckster]

Another resource for testing material is teacherspayteachers.com