Test review: aim it at the gaps instead of reviewing everything

The usual review day problem

You have one or two class periods before the test and fifteen skills in the unit. A whole-unit review gives each skill about three minutes, which is too short to fix anything and too long for students who already have it. The students who most need the review also tend to be the ones who do not tell you what they are missing.

Start with the grid

If the unit's skills have been in ClassSense, open the Students grid before you plan. Each student has a state for each skill: Struggling, Developing, Approaching or Mastered. Scan down a column and you see how many students are below Mastered on that skill. Scan across a row and you see one student's whole unit. Two or three columns will usually be much redder than the rest, and that is your review.

Two cautions. A skill with few attempts will look weak simply because nobody has practised it, so check that before you read it as a misunderstanding. And the state is built from multiple-choice practice, so it tells you what students can do on those items, not everything they can do.

Build the review around what you find

• A practice test. In Create Content, generate an Assessment on the weak skills only. Question types include multiple choice, short answer, true/false, fill-in-the-blank and matching. Print it, have students take it under test conditions, and use it as a diagnostic, not a grade.
• A study guide. The skill packs hold explanations at three depths, worked examples and named misconceptions, and you can turn that into a handout for the skills that need it. See the study guide generator.
• Review games. Students can play practice through the four games in the app, which makes drilling a weak skill feel less like drilling. See classroom review games.
• Station rotation. Put the weakest skill at its own table with you, a practice run at another, and a printed set at a third.

A two-day plan

Where it does not help

• The grid only knows about work done in the app. If you taught a unit without it, there is nothing to read.
• Generated tests need your eyes. Check every key and every question against what you taught, and cut anything that tests something you did not cover.
• A student's state is not a prediction of their test score. A student can be Mastered on every skill and still freeze on a timed paper.
• Nothing here makes the real test. ClassSense is a way to prepare, not a place to give your summative exam, and no marks go to a gradebook.

The goal of review is to find out what students do not know while there is still time to do something about it. That is what formative assessment is for, and it is the reason a diagnostic first, and a review second, usually beats the other way around. For spreading review across a term instead of the last week, see spiral review.

Common questions