IAR Prep: Asking the Right Questions for Big Results by Emily Pritchett

2025-01-03 15:29:30 UTC

We liked the lists of verbs used in each level.

Verbs

2025-01-03 15:30:16 UTC

Verb list is helpful.

We believe that all three levels are necessary but most questions should come from the higher levels.

Admin Table

2025-01-03 15:30:30 UTC

-Good refresher on levels of questioning that can be applied to all content areas

-What is the easiest way to use questions in level 3 without overworking staff in terms of grading

-Students need experience with all three forms of questioning to succeed on the IAR.

2025-01-03 15:30:44 UTC

We typically teach Level 1 daily b/c it's the easiest for us to assess.

Do we teach to the test....or teach at the students' levels?

The grading of IAR is subjective....

2025-01-03 15:31:24 UTC

These types of questions are good for a quick formative assessment. You can quickly adjust teaching strategies.

Levels of Questioning

2025-01-03 15:31:44 UTC

We often do ask all three types of questions without thinking about what type of question it is. We discuss it with our students by referring to the questions as green, yellow, and red.

2025-01-03 15:32:53 UTC

Explicitly teaching the different levels of questions will better prepare students for IAR testing.

2025-01-03 15:35:07 UTC

We want to expose students to a variety of questions to better prepare them for IAR and prevent "freak out" moments during the test.

3rd-6th ELA

2025-01-03 16:03:31 UTC

Common themes: both grade levels ask the student to support their answer to part A in part B by using text evidence, many times in a subjective way.

Many questions required students to think about multiple parts of the passage and how they related to eachother.

2025-01-03 16:07:33 UTC

Our reading curriculum has questions very similar to the IAR questions. Our math curriculum also gives opportunities for written explanations.

2025-01-03 16:07:40 UTC

ELA Questions have several parts and if they miss the first part, they will likely miss the remaining parts.

All levels of questions are seen.

To an extent, our subject matter does support this type of thinking. We often have students work in pairs or complete items together that are more rigorous. This way they have at least experienced this type of rigor.

Admin Table

2025-01-03 16:07:41 UTC

4th grade ELA and math: See all levels of questions including drag and drop, multiple step questions, etc. Can see where if a student didn't have experience with higher level questions they would struggle.

HS Narrative and Research

2025-01-03 16:07:43 UTC

Both tests asked type 1 questions followed by type 2 evidence and included one essay. My classroom practice includes all three types of questions, but my actual unit assessments are more type 1 with little 2 or 3. I spend more class time writing and connecting to evidence outside of "assessments".

2025-01-03 16:08:11 UTC

All three types of questions are being asked. Our curriculum does lends itself well to exposing students to similar types of questions. However, a challenge is getting the students to think deeply about those types of questions independently. How do we get students to take this initiative?

We see that the intrinsic motivation isn't always there.

Stanely V. Owala

2025-01-03 16:08:22 UTC

Looked at JH Reading! Lots of text evidence expected, which is great. But older kids lack motivation to read the passage and get that support. They feel a bit overwhelmed with the passages. Big jump with length of passages between 7th and 8th.

2025-01-03 16:08:42 UTC

We noticed that several questions in both Math ad ELA had multiple parts. In theory, this is good but it could be challenging for students. Our classroom rigor does not tend to follow this type of format. So, we are wondering if that would inhibit the scores?

Math

2025-01-03 16:10:25 UTC

Many questions require mulitple steps. The students need strong basic skills to be able to apply their knowledge and skills in both reading and math. IReady does use this type of questioning techniques, but we pull in supplemental materials as well.