Thought Leadership
How to Help Students Prepare for End of Year Assessments
We know that it can be a balancing act getting students comfortable and confident for state assessments. In one test, kids are asked to showcase their knowledge of three things as they interpret and answer questions across every subject: the standards, their computer testing skills, and their ever-increasing comprehension skills. BrainPOP’s interdisciplinary approach combines grade-leveled knowledge-building, skill practice, and assessment readiness into one time-saving lesson—helping you make the most of every instructional minute. And, when test day arrives, kids will feel confident and comfortable juggling all of their cognitive abilities. After all, they’ve been practicing all year long.
3 Assessment Skills Students Practice on BrainPOP
Let’s dive deeper into which specific assessment skills students are building when they learn on BrainPOP.
Mastering TEI navigation—in both format and rigor
Computer-based tests have brought the advent of Technology-Enhanced Items (TEIs), otherwise known as non-multiple choice questions like the drag-and-drop, the multiple select, and the multiple part test questions. While students these days are certainly more digitally literate than previous generations, we don’t want them to feel intimidated by question types and technologies they haven’t interacted with before.
In BrainPOP, TEIs are embedded throughout Pause Points, Enhanced Quizzes, Vocab Builder, and Challenges. These auto-graded features—in addition to allowing students to demonstrate their understanding—are handy ways to give students practice in the format and rigor of questions they’ll encounter during testing (and an even handier way for teachers to make sure they’re right on track).
Using background knowledge to understand the material—while honing comprehension skills to make meaning of it
This one is a bit of a two-for-one. TEIs are constructed so students can’t rely on guesswork. Instead, they’ll need to rely on their comprehension skills and critical thinking. However, comprehension skills and critical thinking are not taught in a bubble—they’re inextricably tied to what a student already knows about a topic. A student who knows more about a topic going into a text will have an easier time comprehending it…making it easier for their brains to remember the information and use their critical thinking skills to make meaning of it.
Whether they’re reading a word problem about dividing pizzas or finding the main idea of a paragraph about Aztecs, students will need to be able to fully read the material before they have a fighting chance of answering questions about it. They’ll need to know a little bit about Aztecs for the former—and tier 2 vocabulary words like “equal” or “evenly” for the latter. In this way, Daniel Willingham has memorably said that “reading tests are knowledge tests in disguise.”
With BrainPOP’s movies, students can equitably learn the background knowledge that’ll help them answer the kinds of questions they’ll see on state assessments—and then, with BrainPOP’s activities, they’ll directly practice answering them while honing their comprehension skills. Leveled Reading lets students learn that all-important background knowledge about the Aztecs before being asked to find the main idea of a connected text. With Vocab Builder, students are asked to make meaning of tier 2 words connected to the division movie—like “equal” and “evenly”—so they’ll be ready whether those words pop up on a future assessment question about division, or social studies, or civics.
3 Ways to Use BrainPOP For Assessment Prep Tomorrow
Here are three examples of a BrainPOP classroom to show you what this low-stakes assessment prep looks like in practice—no matter what subject you teach.
1. If you’re teaching social studies:
After watching the American Revolution movie (with Pause Points!) to help all students—regardless of their learning level—understand the material in a way that works for them, assign a grade-leveled Quiz for each student to do on their own: they’ll deepen their knowledge on the subject, while giving you a formative assessment, while practicing their TEIs. Then, assign a Leveled Reading text on Patriots and Loyalists to get them to practice skills like extracting important details, and Vocab Builder to learn the related tier 2 vocabulary like “surrender” that’ll help them with assessment questions across any subject.
2. If you’re teaching science:
Give students background knowledge on Compounds and Mixtures (while helping Rita and Moby get off a desert island!), then take the opportunity to help students fully comprehend tier 2 words like “property” and “combine” with Vocab Builder—this will help them understand the science principles right alongside vocabulary that will pop up in other contexts. A Quiz afterward will ask them to do things like “drag the mixtures to their correct category based on their type”—an excellent way to help them practice comprehension and literacy skills while reinforcing their new science knowledge and practicing TEIs.
3. If you’re teaching ELA:
Give students background knowledge on nouns—while having fun with Tim and Moby!—by assigning the Nouns movie with Pause Points, and following it up with grade-leveled Quiz to help them reinforce new knowledge (like “What do all compound nouns have in common?”) and apply this knowledge to questions like “Which sentence is grammatically correct”? Then, assign them a Leveled Reading about metonymy and synecdoche. Because they are now equipped with their essential background knowledge on nouns, the comprehension questions on this new concept will be challenging, yet accessible, for everyone.
Preparing students for their end-of-year assessments doesn’t have to be daunting. Instead, it can coexist alongside your regular content instruction with BrainPOP. And, as the cherry on top, BrainPOP’s combination of background knowledge building and skill-building doesn’t only help students prepare for TEIs and assessments: it helps them become more agile learners.
AnnaLiese Burich is a product marketing manager at BrainPOP with a history of Edtech writing experience. She holds an MA in Magazine Journalism and an MA in English Literature.
