Structured Unit Review for State Standardized Tests and End-of Course Exams

Debbie Willingham
Mar 16, 2009

We have all done it.  We knew the big test was coming and kept procrastinating, until, finally,  it loomed ahead of us, and we had no other choice - we had to cram!  Students now have even more pressure, because the stakes are high, not only for them, but also for their teacher, school, district, and state. Teachers are now much more stressed out, because the accountability for their students' achievement hovers as the result of the pressure trickling down from the state superintendent to the district superintendent to the principal to them.

So, does cramming for a test work? Even when it is used to study for a final exam in a specific course, and when we know exactly what content to review, studying a large amount of material in a short period of time (usually including late at night just before the exam) is not the most effective way to retain information. With today's state standardized tests students and teachers only know the general range of information that may be tested, which makes cramming to memorize unrealistic. Cramming for a test can lead to confusion of facts the student has already learned, which can be especially true for students with specific learning disabilities. It is also difficult at this late date to connect "new" facts to prior learning, which is necessary to commit ideas to memory. Cramming just does not allow time for the brain to process the content and make important connections in concepts.

In many classrooms, the teacher version of "cramming" is seen as the state test draws near. They use the weeks leading up to the test to teach test-taking strategies and to review content from the entire year. Part of the problem with the effectiveness of this approach is that students have so much thrown at them in such a short amount of time that they have "information overload." When they complete practice items over and over, they become tired of doing them and become less and less motivated as they get closer to test time. So, what should we do instead?

We learn about using a Learning Based Review Schedule in Learning-Focused training. The premise here is that teachers should set aside one or two class periods each month to review the content taught the previous month, periodically also including a review of the most essential content from earlier in the year, as well. An option for middle and high school teachers is to set aside review days at the end of each learning unit, since that is a natural break.

The review can take place in the form of a game, such as Bingo, Jeopardy, or $10,000 Pyramid, using lesson essential questions from the unit(s) as the basis for the game questions. If students have created vocabulary or study cards during a unit, they may use those for partner card games. Another review option is to have students condense the most difficult to remember content to a 4" x 6" index card, trade cards with their partner, and ask each other questions from the cards. The teacher might want to keep students' cards until the next review day, when they go through the same process with the next unit and again go through previously created cards. By the end of the course they will have a synopsis of the condensed, most difficult content, which by that time will not seem so difficult after all. Websites for good review games and activities include http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm, http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/, and http://www.educationworld.com/a_less...esson306.shtml.

Using these strategies throughout the year on a regular basis can help improve state test achievement and final exam performance much more effectively and efficiently than cramming.

Refer to Planning Units for Learning for more information and ideas on Structured Review. Additional strategies for preparing for assessments all year can be found in our Connecting Learning to Assessments Book and Flipchart.