How can teachers use the comprehension strategies put forward in books like Strategies That Work and Mosaic of Thought to help students become not just better readers and thinkers but also better test takers? The four authors of Put Thinking to the Test have spent years pursuing that question and have developed a groundbreaking approach, as their colleague Ellin Keene writes in the foreword to the book:
Just as comprehension strategies have helped millions of students learn to read like proficient readers, they can also help students think like effective test-takers. The authors show how students can use background knowledge, mental images, synthesizing, monitoring, inferring, questioning, and determining of importance to understand the genre of tests and to think through the problems they are given. Instead of engaging in artificial and disconnected activities to cram for upcoming tests, students learn skills and strategies that will serve them throughout their school careers and beyond. Presenting numerous classroom vignettes featuring students in grades 3-8, "Put Thinking to the Test" includes: (1) examples of the direct application of thinking strategy instruction to test taking; (2) actual work samples from lessons used with students; (3) additional lesson ideas that go beyond the teaching described in the vignettes; (4) detailed anchor charts; and (5) background on how the authors came to understand this work so that a staff, team, or individual teacher can apply these concepts in their own school setting. This book is divided into three sections. Section I, Wondering About Tests, contains the following chapters: (1) Coming to Know Standardized Tests: Walking in Our Students' Shoes; (2) Tests as a Genre: What Makes Standardized Tests Unique; and (3) Increasing Student Stamina: The Role of Workshop Structures in Becoming Successful Test Takers. Section ii, Thinking About Tests, contains the following chapters: (4) Ask Questions; (5) Create Mental Images; (6) Draw Inferences; (7) Synthesize New Learning and Ideas; (8) Activate, Utilize, and Build Background Knowledge (Schema); (9) Determine the Most Important Ideas and Themes; and (10) Monitor for Meaning and Problem-Solve When Meaning Breaks Down. Section iii, Still Learning About Tests, contains the following chapters: (11) q and A--Weaving Thinking Together with Testing; and (12) Integrity: It's All About Being True to Ourselves and Our Profession. References are also included. [Foreword by Ellin Keene.].
America's leading expert in educational testing and measurement openly names the failures caused by today's testing policies and provides a blueprint for doing better. 6 x 9.
Study Skills and Test-Taking Strategies for Medical Students: Find and Use Your Personal Learning Style provides techniques that identify and apply the medical student's personal learning style to specific study skills and exam-taking strategies so that understanding, analysis, synthesis, and recall of information occur in a time-efficient manner. This volume in the Oklahoma Notes Series is written for talented medical students who were excellent scholars in undergraduate school but find themselves overwhelmed with the information explosion and time constraints of medical school.
Simply put, Thinking Through Statistics is a primer on how to maintain rigorous data standards in social science work, and one that makes a strong case for revising the way that we try to use statistics to support our theories. But don’t let that daunt you. With clever examples and witty takeaways, John Levi Martin proves himself to be a most affable tour guide through these scholarly waters. Martin argues that the task of social statistics isn't to estimate parameters, but to reject false theory. He illustrates common pitfalls that can keep researchers from doing just that using a combination of visualizations, re-analyses, and simulations. Thinking Through Statistics gives social science practitioners accessible insight into troves of wisdom that would normally have to be earned through arduous trial and error, and it does so with a lighthearted approach that ensures this field guide is anything but stodgy.
This Book attempts to make a comprehensive and critical exposition of all the facets of teaching. It evaluates the comparative soundness of the Principles, Methods, Techniques and Devices of Teaching. The chief accent of the book is on helping teachers to teach better. The objective is strictly utilitarian and is designed to serve as a reliable guide to the work in the classroom. The book also offers practical suggestions for making the teaching-learning process effective, inspirational & interesting. It incorporates the approaches recommended by eminent educational philosophers and practitioners. A detailed survey of the valuable teaching practices followed in India and abroad also find an important place in the book.
Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin pioneered the agile testing discipline with their previous work, Agile Testing. Now, in More Agile Testing, they reflect on all they've learned since. They address crucial emerging issues, share evolved agile practices, and cover key issues agile testers have asked to learn more about. Packed with new examples from real teams, this insightful guide offers detailed information about adapting agile testing for your environment; learning from experience and continually improving your test processes; scaling agile testing across teams; and overcoming the pitfalls of automated testing. You'll find brand-new coverage of agile testing for the enterprise, distributed teams, mobile/embedded systems, regulated environments, data warehouse/BI systems, and DevOps practices. You'll come away understanding - How to clarify testing activities within the team - Ways to collaborate with business experts to identify valuable features and deliver the right capabilities - How to design automated tests for superior reliability and easier maintenance - How agile team members can improve and expand their testing skills - How to plan "just enough," balancing small increments with larger feature sets and the entire system - How to use testing to identify and mitigate risks associated with your current agile processes and to prevent defects - How to address challenges within your product or organizational context - How to perform exploratory testing using "personas" and "tours" - Exploratory testing approaches that engage the whole team, using test charters with session- and thread-based techniques - How to bring new agile testers up to speed quickly-without overwhelming them The eBook edition of More Agile Testing also is available as part of a two-eBook collection, The Agile Testing Collection (9780134190624).
