Don't Teach to the Test, Teach through the Test

(For a video companion to this article, click here.)

Whether educators like it or not, we are living in the era of high-stakes testing, and that reality isn’t changing in the foreseeable future. Students in 3rd through 8th grade will continue to take early assessments in math and reading, while high school students must complete at least one state assessment before transitioning to college entrance exams.

More distressing for most educators is that these high-stakes assessments are used as the primary measure of school quality and instructional effectiveness. In some states, these results even determine teacher tenure and retention. Whether it is fair or not — and research consistently suggests it is not — this has been the reality for educators since the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its slightly gentler iteration, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The Silver Lining

Although uncomfortable, there are silver linings in the storm cloud of testing anxiety. In my experience as an educator in both instruction and administration, I have found success by shifting the focus: not teaching to the test, but rather teaching through the test.

What exactly does that mean? Does it not sound like the millions of Hallmark-style aphorisms that populate the world of education, right next to the endless parade of abbreviations and acronyms?

Defining “Teaching Through”

I define it as providing an assessment without treating it solely as a summative, concrete measure of what students know or how I performed as an educator. Instead, teaching through the test means using the assessment to explicitly teach test-taking and application skills, rather than just measuring content mastery.

Whenever I provide an assessment, I am not just asking students to show me what they know; I am teaching them how to apply their knowledge within a high-stakes environment.

Assessment as a Bridge

Dylan Wiliam (2018) argues that “assessment is the bridge between teaching and learning.” It should not be something that happens separate from the educational process to audit performance, but rather an essential component of the process itself. If this is true, educators must be given the grace and freedom to use tests — even high-stakes benchmarks — to inform the instructional process and the practical skills students will need in life.

The Problem with “Audit-Only” Testing

Before delving into the “how,” let me provide a non-example. At one of my former schools, the culture was deeply embedded in direct instruction and high-stakes benchmarks. For our midterms (one of ten high-stakes assessments given per year), I allowed students to go back and make corrections — so long as they could explain the correct answer and why it was correct.

When administration learned of this, I was pulled into the office. I was kindly, but clearly, told that this practice could not continue. These assessments were meant to determine student retention and my own instructional effectiveness.

I knew even then that this approach was misguided. Wiliam explains it best: “Just imagine what would happen if a pilot flew like many teachers assess… he would fly east for nine hours and then ask, ‘Is this London?’” (2018). In the world of education, the administrative argument is: “Well, let the pilot show us if he can reach London. If he fails, then we know there is a problem with his navigation.”

That logic sounds fine until you realize there is a plane full of 200+ passengers stuck while fuel, time, and effort are wasted on an unsuccessful journey.

Shifting the Pedagogy

If best practice tells us that instruction should happen whenever the opportunity presents itself, then assessments should be viewed as just one additional avenue of instruction. For me, this has meant:

• Explicit Instruction: Identifying key test-taking skills and teaching them throughout the year.
• Question Integration: Sharing common question stems and embedding them into organic instruction.
• Active Prompting: Answering student questions about what a test item is asking and prompting them to use previously taught skills.
• Feedback Loops: Allowing test corrections with feedback or providing follow-up assessments for students who struggled.
• Authentic Supplementation: Supplementing traditional benchmarks with assessments grounded in real-world practices.
• Resource Access: Allowing open notes or open texts when an assignment measures anything other than rote memorization.

Preparing for the Real World

Critics might argue that this approach reduces the validity of the assessment or that it fails to prepare students for the “real world” where testing is a part of life. I would remind those critics of the true purpose of education: to build the skills necessary to succeed in life.

Benchmark assessments are artificial constructs unique to education. In what other field is someone given a high-stakes assignment and told to complete it in total isolation without resources?

• Surgeons operate under the supervision of veterans who provide immediate feedback.
• Pilots fly in pairs.
• Salespeople start with assistance from a manager.
• Educators begin with a supervising teacher.

If support systems increase as we become adults, why would we withhold them from students?

Teaching through the test has been a core component of my pedagogy. It is something I will continue to advocate for throughout my career — or at least until I discover an even more effective practice. It should be noted that when I have used these practices, I have seen substantial growth in my students on assessments where I must refrain from providing any supports, including state assessments. I have also had the pleasure of former students coming to me and thanking me for how these practices built their skills and confidence even years later. Thus, at the risk of sounding like a cliché, “The proof is in the pudding.”

References

Popham, W. J. (2008). Transformative assessment. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wiliam, D. (2018). Embedded formative assessment (2nd ed.). Solution Tree Press.