Presentation Title:
Motivation is Magic: Backward Planning School-Wide Success on ELP Assessments
Presentation Options: Onsite
Presentation Strand: Language Assessment
Presentation Delivery Language: English
Description:
Motivating middle and high school students to work hard on hours-long ELP assessments can be tricky, particularly for long-term ELs who have taken the exams many times. Students may click through quickly or write one-word essays, creating frustration all around.
Breaking this cycle isn’t magic. Join us to unpack the issues that contribute to low test motivation, and co-create a plan for empowering students to understand their language development and drive their own success.
Participants receive sample lesson plans and a backward planning guide to bring the magic to their own school or district.
Abstract:
Annual English language proficiency (ELP) assessments are important for accountability and English learner student progress tracking, but student motivation can be a challenge. Students must be empowered to understand their language development and drive their own success (Berry, 2023); if not, poor language scores and the resulting long-term EL label can have long-lasting negative effects on student motivation (Clark‐Gareca et al., 2020) and opportunities in school (Umansky et al., 2021; Umansky & Avelar, 2023).
Part 1 - Motivation Matters: Participants consider the research behind student motivation and the issues that contribute. Participants will assess their own school by discussing similarities and differences with a partner. (Ex: Are solely ELD teachers administering tests? Are students engaged in goal setting with a familiar teacher?) Individuals share out, discovering that many challenges are common across schools/districts.
Part 2 - Backward planning solutions: Established challenges will be paired with research-based solutions (Hattie, 2023). The group will engage in backward planning to tackle these common issues. Solutions will be categorized by stakeholder. School leaders affect the testing environment (ex: privacy for speaking tests), testing schedule (core teachers as test administrators) and a schoolwide motivation campaign. Core teachers lead students in a test preparation week, including discussing the test, sharing students’ previous scores with them, coaching conversations about performance on the upcoming exam, and completing practice items together. The same teachers may administer the test to the same student group. Activity: Participants receive sample lesson plans and backward plan implementation for their own school
Presentation Types: Academic-50m
Target Audience: PreK - 12
Primary Presenter's Telephone: 4058245068
Confirm your Participation: Yes I will present
