Tip of the Week: Cultivate a Productive Attitude Toward Testing
Spring testing is here! Perhaps you’re in a state that requires achievement testing. Or, you test regardless of state requirements in order to gain the valuable information it yields. Either way, your student’s attitude toward and during this important activity is a vital key to doing well and showing what he or she knows and has learned this year.
Consider the following pairs of attitudes below. They are adapted from Pathway 2 Success. The first, what teachers would call “closed,” or “unproductive” is unlikely to lead to a strong test performance. The second is what we would call an “open,” “productive,” or “growth” attitude.
- Unproductive: “Testing is stressful.”
- Productive: “While testing may be stressful or challenging, stress and challenges help me grow academically.”
- Unproductive: “I’m not good at testing.”
- Productive: “By practicing, I can improve.”
- Unproductive: “I can’t do this so I won’t try.”
- Productive: “I realize there will be problems on the test that I know how to do and some I won’t. I’ll try to do them all.”
- Unproductive: “Making mistakes and getting things wrong make me feel bad.”
- Productive: “While making mistakes might make me feel bad, I can learn from them and make fewer mistakes next time.”
- Unproductive: “Others do better at testing than I do.”
- Productive: “While I realize that others may do better at testing than me, I’ll still do my best knowing that each person has different gifts and abilities.”
Cultivate a productive attitude toward testing.
That’s the tip of the week!
Curt Bumcrot, MRE
