Teaching Strategies That Prepare Students for High-Stakes Tests

"Helps building and district-level administrators realize that they don′t have to abandon sound and effective instructional practices to prepare students for high-stakes tests."
―Sheila Smith, Science Specialist
Jackson Public Schools, MS

"I encourage trainers to discuss this text and its applications with teachers to enhance the performance of students on state and national tests. This book meets a very specific need in classrooms."
―J-Petrina McCarty-Puhl, Teacher
Robert McQueen High School, Reno, NV

Improve student performance on high-stakes tests with research-proven practices for teaching to standards!

Standardized tests are one of the leading measures of student achievement and educator accountability today, so it is important to give students the necessary skills to perform well on state exams and to align instructional practices with standards. This step-by-step manual outlines a straightforward, powerful model for infusing state standards and knowledge benchmarks into lesson plans and day-to-day assessments to boost overall achievement.

Grounded in the results of more than 30,000 studies, the best practices shared by the authors are linked specifically to the two types of knowledge―declarative and procedural―assessed on high-stakes tests and are ranked according to their effectiveness for each type. To help educators maximize testing results while meeting state standards and ultimately deepening student learning, the text provides a solid framework that empowers teachers to easily:

• Unpack state standards by grade level into measurable units
• Identify the key elements of state tests
• Determine and assess critical benchmarks
• Select the most appropriate and meaningful strategies based on new data on the effectiveness of various instructional practices

From reproducible templates to tangible tactics for mapping lesson plans, this resource offers comprehensive tools for teachers to nurture learning and ensure success in all students.

Donna Walker Tileston is a veteran teacher and administrator. She is currently the president of Strategic Teaching and Learning, a consulting firm that provides services to schools throughout the United States and worldwide. Donna’s publications include Ten Best Teaching Practices: How Brain Research, Learning Styles, and Standards Define Teaching Competencies (2000), which has been on Corwin′s bestseller list since its first year in print, in addition to the ten-volume award-winning series What Every Teacher Should Know, now in its second edition. Other recent titles are Teaching Strategies for Active Learning (2006), Teaching Strategies that Prepare Students for High Stakes Tests (2008), and Closing the Poverty and Culture Gap (2009). Donna received her BA from the University of North Texas, her MA from East Texas State University, and her EdD from Texas A & M University-Commerce. She may be reached at www.whateveryteachershouldknow.com

Sandra K. Darling is the founder and president of Learning Bridges. Grounded in five years of research, the Learning Bridges Aligned Instructional Database contains the most effective, research-based instructional strategies for the standards of all states―ranked in order of their power to impact learning. Born into extreme poverty in rural Minnesota, Darling understands the power of having significant adults in her life who believed in her, held high expectations, and taught her the value of integrity. She has co-authored three books in education and published articles in several education journals. She has presented on standards-based education, curriculum alignment, inclusion practices, transformational leadership, school improvement, strategic planning, and assessment practices to thousands of educators. She is the leading expert on aligning instructional strategies to content standards and delivering that instruction with the modifications to close the gap in achievement for diverse learners, i.e., students from poverty, diverse cultures, and English language learners. She received her BS degree, three master’s degrees, and her PhD from the University of Minnesota in related areas of education.