From the beginning of the term/unit I talk about the unit test.  It is a reality that at the end of a science unit there is usually a test and learning how to prepare for a test is part of learning science in an intermediate classroom, in my opinion.

Through every chapter and every experiment we talk, we listen, we write and we represent our knowledge.  This is test preparation and knowledge acquistion and literacy expansion - this is science discourse.  

I tie ideas together as they make sense to me; I model my metacognition of concepts.  I ask individual students to model what I hear them saying and what I see them writing.  Soon they are doing this without my instruction because it makes sense to them.  They become instructors and students of each other.  They build on their group knowledge by working together; asking and answering meaningful questions - thinking. 

And then the unit is done, we need to prepare for the test.  In table groups, which at this time of year are fives and sixes, I assign sections of chapters to prepare questions from.  Each chapter has several sections and a few activities; so each group usually gets to prepare at least one set of questions, (true and false, multiple choice, fill in the blank and short answer), from each chapter.  They prepare the questions as a Word document and send them to me as an attachment on an e-mail.  They do this in one forty minute block.  I compile the attachments into a student made test during recess, print it and photocopy it.  After recess we complete the test, quiz show style answering the questions as a class.  They are ready for the test; they have been preparing for it from the first day of the unit.

The day of the test is always a day of anxiety, there is no getting around it.  Eighty minutes are set aside for the writing of the test and it takes some of them all that time and more.  I usually allow students up to two hours to complete a unit test, if they want it.  I allow them to start early, and to go late, (beginning during their recess and extending into their lunch hour).

I hand out the test without any instruction and let them begin - they are anxious to get it started.  I interupt them about thirty minutes into the test to point out possible places for misreading of instructions and pointers I have come to from past tests.  At about fourty-five minutes into the test I hand out a small snack; they are always hungry and they are using a lot of energy thinking.  At about sixty minutes into the test I give them a one minute talk break, they can ask anyone at their group any question and talk about it for sixty seconds.  The room erupts; when I call sixty seconds it is again pindrop silent.  I do one more sixty second talk break with fifteen minutes left, this time they can talk to anyone they want in the room.  No one wastes their talk time; they ask great questions.

I try to have the tests marked by the following day, sometimes I make it. 

Each time I grade a class set of tests I am amazed at how well they do.  Look for yourself, in the gallery below I have included the short answer portion of all of the student's tests in my class.

Unit Test Winter Term - Energy

After the test there is always a sense of accomplishment, of a job well done.  This unit was no exception.  And we always have a project to do.  This time the project was to create one minute commercials for saving energy.

Energy/Environment Saving Commercials

As well, there is usually a field trip that follows the science unit.  This term we went to Stave Falls Hydroelectric Generating Station on March 30, 2007. 

Images from our trip to Stave Falls Generating Station