Decreasing Test Anxiety: A View from a Special Education School

SUMMARY doesn’t simply evaporate once the tests A special school in are done. The lingering effect of anxiety upper Manhattan serves a distinct Test anxiety is sometimes spills over into other classroom work population of high-need atypical learn- an unintended and further inhibits effective learning for consequence influencing ers, including students who present on a population of students already encoun- our current school the autistic spectrum and those who climate as states and tering obstacles to their educational exhibit any of the array of conditions districts rely more and development, such as an inability to classified under the diagnosis of emo- more on the use of learn that cannot be explained by intel- testing data to drive tional disturbance (ED). At the heart of lectual, sensory, or health factors. Under decision making. These this diagnosis are behaviors and social normal circumstances these students authors discuss the deficits that make test-taking even under atmosphere of testing and have an inability to build or maintain sat- ideal conditions difficult (Roughan & its impact on students’ isfactory interpersonal relationships with emotional well-being. Hadwin, 2011), to say nothing of test peers and teachers and demonstrate They also suggest some situations that require these students to inappropriate types of behavior or feel- practical ways to help sit and focus for the two to three hours students and teachers ings. Many of these same students are a day necessary to complete many of cope with anxiety that characterized as having a general perva- these instruments. When this difficult results from the pressures sive mood of unhappiness or depression of mandated annual time demand is further compounded that tends to develop physical symptoms testing. by tests that must be administered over or fears associated with personal or several days, or even weeks, the poten- school problems. On test days, incidents tial for acting out and/or shutting down of students ripping up tests, attempting behaviors on the part of ED students is to run out of their classrooms, or just greatly increased. putting their heads down and complete- An additional challenge for administra- ly giving up, are commonplace and on tors, staff and students is that the anxiety the rise as tests now reflect the new, produced in this testing environment more demanding Common Core Learning Standards.

Barry Daub is principal of P.S. M811, Mickey Mantle School. Brian Joyce, a member of the United Federation of Teachers, is a school social worker at P.S. M811.

Educator’s Voice n Volume VII n Page 64 Barry Daub, P.S. M811, Mickey Mantle School Brian Joyce, United Federation of Teachers

Confronted with this pronounced test social needs, demonstrated greater taking anxiety, and the classroom dis- general and specific improvement than The lingering ruptions created by inappropriate did their ED peers served in self-con- effect of anxiety behaviors, it was time to put our heads tained classrooms in the general educa- together and figure out how we could tion environment. Mattison attributed spills over into support our students and staff through this “stability” to the “comprehensive other classroom this incredibly challenging process and and intensive levels of both educational create a learning environment that pro- and mental health interventions” char- work and further vides, Social and Emotional Learning acteristic of the self-contained school inhibits effective (SEL), including instruction in self- (Mattison, 2011, p. 31). management of challenging behaviors, learning for a positive behavior supports, and social This self-contained school environ- population of skills development. ment places the psychological and physical well-being of the students at students already the center of all planning and curricu- encountering lum efforts. In keeping with much of Emotional Disturbance and the the current research on effective edu- obstacles to Challenge of Meeting Students’ cational delivery to ED populations, Social, Emotional and Academic their educational Needs the emphasis is on creating a context for social and emotional learning. As development. Mattison (2011) observed that approx- Adams (2013) noted, the discourse imately 40 percent of American stu- around definitions of SEL “can some- dents classified with ED (roughly times seem frivolous,” but in fact there 200,000 nationwide) are taught in self- are “real implications with regards to contained classrooms or specialized creating a shared understanding and schools; many ED students experience framework around a student’s growth” both school settings over the course of (p. 107), particularly when that stu- their educational careers. While greater dent has special learning needs. investigation of the strengths and dif- ferences of these educational settings is Our staff and administration have indicated, Mattison reported that ED adopted an SEL framework similar to students in specialized schools, despite that used in school districts in Alaska, having more intensive emotional and continued on following page

Educator’s Voice n Volume VII n Page 65 Decreasing Test Anxiety: A View from a Special Education School

Learning to Illinois, and Minnesota, that priori- preventing and managing unwanted tizes active listening and feedback feelings and conflict. By working identify and label across all school constituencies together to build the charter, “every- emotions is a (Adams, 2013). Consistent with a one establishes common goals and focus on social and emotional learn- holds each other accountable for cre- critical step ing, administrators and staff have ating the positive climate they envi- toward been working to incorporate ele- sion” (Yale Center. . ., n.d., para. 2). ments of the RULER program: cultivating Recognizing, Understanding, The classroom charters are revisited emotional Labeling, Expressing, and weekly to ensure that all members of Regulating, developed by the Yale the class remain on the proverbial intelligence. Center for Emotional Intelligence. “same page” of expectations and RULER identifies four “Anchors of agreement. The RULER program Emotional Intelligence”: Charter, defines mood meter as a practice for Mood Meter, Meta-Moment and identifying and labeling feelings as Blueprint. These anchors are the they’re experienced, as this is a criti- fundamental RULER tools that cal step in learning to appropriately enhance individuals’ ability to under- regulate those feelings. The teachers stand and regulate their own emo- have developed and share a practice tions and to consider and empathize of daily check-ins with their students, with how others are feeling. The modeling and reinforcing the use of anchors also foster the kind of accurate and targeted language. As healthy emotional climate essential to the RULER website explains: personal growth. “Learning to identify and label emo- tions is a critical step toward cultivat- The school’s evolving SEL program ing emotional intelligence. Using the has effectively incorporated the char- mood meter, students and educators ter and mood meter anchors, in our become more mindful of how their classrooms. Each classroom creates emotions change throughout the day its own charter, a collaborative docu- and how their emotions in turn affect ment that helps establish a support- their actions. They develop the self- ive and productive learning awareness they need to inform their environment. It is created by mem- choices. Students learn to expand bers of the community, outlining their emotional vocabulary, replacing how they aspire to treat each other. basic feeling words with more Together, the community describes sophisticated terms. They graduate how they want to feel at school, the from using words like ‘ok’ or ‘fine’ to behaviors that foster those feelings, using words like ‘alienated’ and and pro-social guidelines for ‘hopeless,’ or ‘tranquil’ and ‘serene.’

Educator’s Voice n Volume VII n Page 66 By teaching subtle distinctions Sample Classroom Charter between similar feelings, the mood meter empowers students and educa- tors to recognize the full scope of their emotional lives and address all feelings more effectively.” (Yale Center…, n.d., para. 3).

Using SEL to Battle Student Test Anxiety The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs established Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) to provide concrete guidance to schools and staff serving special needs stu- dents. PBIS is a systems approach to establishing the social culture and natural group to embrace this chal- behavioral supports needed for all chil- lenge. We charged the team to work dren in a school to achieve both social closely with our teachers and leverage and academic success. PBIS is not a our established schoolwide SEL and packaged curriculum, but an approach PBIS initiatives together in devising that defines core elements that can be ways to counter the mounting student achieved through a variety of strate- test anxiety. gies. Recognizing we needed to arrive at some supports to help motivate our One example of this effort was using students to face their social and emo- the existing mood meter practice, tional deficits, and to alleviate our stu- which students and teachers were dents’ high levels of test anxiety and already familiar with, to explore and corresponding negative behaviors, we acknowledge students’ feelings about looked to the school’s own Universal taking these standardized tests. They PBIS Team, staffed with a cross sec- were encouraged to identify their spe- tion of dedicated teachers, counselors, cific concerns and to distinguish anger and paraprofessionals. The core of the from fear, frustration from boredom, Universal PBIS Team’s mission and so on. The charter component of involves advocating for our students’ our SEL programming was also academic success and social emotional employed by the Universal PBIS well-being, so we knew this was a continued on following page

Educator’s Voice n Volume VII n Page 67 Decreasing Test Anxiety: A View from a Special Education School

Team and our teachers to this same to parents to inform them that we end. For instance, the school’s themed would be giving students practice behavior matrix of a Respectful exams every Friday morning, in an Responsible and Safe (RRS) environ- effort to better support their children ment came in handy for teachers as through the upcoming state English they made test-related connections and language arts and math exams. The engaged in direct teaching of what it Focus Friday schedule alternated ELA means for students to be respectful and math test training so that the first and responsible in the classroom, con- Friday covered 15-20 minutes of mul- sistent with the agreed upon principles tiple choice ELA training, while the of their classroom charter. This effort next Friday’s session provided 15-20 was mirrored and supported by our minutes of multiple choice math counseling team who began to work training. with our students to develop their individual social-emotional competen- Over a period of three months, the cies related to test-taking. training increased by 10 to 15 minutes each session for both subjects and incorporated different response struc- tures, such as short answer and Focus Fridays extended response, in addition to mul- The conversations with our Universal tiple choice. At the conclusion of the PBIS Team members centered on try- Focus Friday intervention, students ing to figure out what we could do to were receiving an hour’s worth of test reduce the overall anxiety, and subse- practice experience. While this time quent disruptive behaviors, that far too frame is still shy of what is expected in many of our students were exhibiting the actual test situation, it was general- during the state testing periods. This ly agreed that this was the most time conversation resulted in the idea of our the school could devote to test practice piloting what we now call Focus without compromising the critical Friday. Focus Friday is a test simula- work of core curriculum delivery. tion practice that was designed to slowly build up students’ test-taking The administration and staff continue endurance in the months leading up to to explore the appropriate balance of test day. Students gain familiarity with test preparation within the context of the test format and question types and both SEL practice and differentiated learn strategies that help them formu- learning delivery to our students. But late responses to test questions. The we are optimistic about the path we program kick-off entailed an outreach are on, and our optimism is borne out

Educator’s Voice n Volume VII n Page 68 by the yearly increases we’ve seen in Testing Supports: Raffle Rewards Approach student progress on the NYS ELA and Mathematics exams. Student: How can I win this bike? Teacher: You have a chance to win this bike, and more, by earning as many “Do Your Best On The Test” raffle tickets as possible. Testing Supports Student: How do I earn these raffle tickets? During the two weeks of ELA and Math testing, the PBIS team members Teacher: You can earn 5 tickets during the upcoming ELA test – if you are quiet, respectful, focused, complete the whole test created a raffle with valuable prizes using all your knowledge, and when done – go back over designed to reinforce the motivation of the test again to recheck it and make any changes you think students who find it difficult to even are needed. think about dealing with their emo- tions and anxiety around testing. This Student: Is there a way to earn more tickets? raffle was dubbedDo Your Best on the Teacher: Yes, great question. You can earn 5 more tickets, if after Test, and was designed to mirror the you complete the test, you sit quietly in your seat until all school raffle that is held at monthly your fellow students are done as well. school assemblies. These monthly raf- Student: What about the Math Test? fles recognize students who received RRS Just Did It cards for their prac- Teacher: Great question again!! All of the above applies to the Math Test as well. In other words — if you behave the same way tice of RRS behaviors. Given this tie- during both the ELA and Math test — you can earn up to in, our students are familiar with the 20 tickets toward winning the bike, as well as other prizes. raffle process and don’t have the What are some of the other prizes I could possibly win? expectation that the positive recogni- Student: tion necessarily results in a prize. Teacher: In addition to the bike, we will also raffle off an iPod Shuffle, a Razor Scooter, and a Digital Video Camera. The raffle rewards approach has Remember — the more tickets you earn, the better your proved quite popular. The exchange Teacher: chance of winning something!! featured in the sidebar box was mod- eled by the PBIS team for teachers to Teacher: And a bonus — In addition to the “Do Your Best On The Test” raffle, you can also earn entry into the next two engage in with their students. student/staff sporting events to be held on each Friday following the ELA and Math test. Entry into these events, will be determined by your teacher, based on your overall behavior during test week.

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Most importantly, Summary Although we know we are on the right Our efforts to leverage our internal track, there is still more to do, as our as students’ test SEL and PBIS-related tools and initia- efforts to assist students in managing anxiety-driven tives, combined with the establishment text anxiety have revealed that we need of our Focus Friday program, has to establish a common social and emo- behaviors resulted in a drastic decline of students tional awareness and a common lan- decreased, our ripping up tests, running out of class- guage in our school around SEL skills, rooms during test time, or giving up all emotion words, and feelings, in the students’ progress together. Most importantly, as stu- same way we established and promot- on the standardized dents’ test anxiety-driven behaviors ed a schoolwide language around decreased, our students’ performance behavioral expectations. With this in tests started to on the standardized tests started to mind, last year we created the SEL increase. improve. Integration Committee. The mission of this committee is to identify,

Acknowledging Positive Student Behavior Universal Target Social Emotional Connection Data Points Behavior Supports Population Learning Standards Gotcha Being RRS, Standardized Self-Awareness — 1D Just Did It cards Decrease in a.k.a. Just Did It Cards and Alternative Students have a sense of reinforce a sense of students with Assessment personal responsibility personal responsibility by 10 or more providing consequences referrals. for their actions. Self-Management — 2C Student and Students using effective Just Did It cards staff attendance choice-making and reinforce effective at monthly RRS decision-making skills. choice-making and Booster assemblies decision-making skills where cards are by providing opportunities collected for a Social-Management — 4B for positive consequences prize raffle. Students develop for their actions. constructive relationships Tracking of card Just Did It cards teach distribution across about and reinforce classrooms. constructive relationship by creating opportunities Tracking of card (random acts of kindness) purchase and for positive interactions distribution year between staff and students, to year. thereby strengthening the relationship between both parties.

Educator’s Voice n Volume VII n Page 70 implement, integrate, assess and sus- expressed by staying calm when ameliorate those stressors. The tain social-emotional learning pro- faced with a challenge. We also goal is to enable our students to gramming at the school, in order to anticipate improved goal-directed approach test taking and assessment increase students’ engagement and behavior which we define as a child’s with less anxiety so that they can academic and social-emotional func- initiation of, and persistence in com- better apply themselves and their tioning and support our students’ pleting tasks of varying difficulty, the learning in their test taking. overall independence. ability to keep trying when unsuc- cessful, and the determination to Since the creation of this committee, seek out additional information References we have now aligned all our SEL needed to achieve ones goals. Adams, D. (2013). The application of initiatives within our PBIS frame- social-emotional learning principles work, encouraging our staff to view In addition to the established SEL to a special education environment. KJEP Special Issue (2013), 103-118. everything we do through an SEL competencies, the DESSA measures Retrieved on October 28, 2013 at lens. optimistic thinking: a child’s atti- http://eng.kedi.re.kr tude of confidence, hopefulness, Deveraux Center for Resilient Children. The chart at left is part of the matrix and positive thinking regarding her- (n.d.) Alignment tools. Retrieved on that specifically aligns an extrinsic self/himself and her/his life situations October 27, 2013 at http://www.cen- motivation with the learning of SEL terforresilientchildren.org/school-age/ in the past, present, and future; abil- alignment-tools/ skills. ity to say good things about herself/ Mattison, R.E. (2011). Comparison of himself, look forward to classes or students classified ED in self-contained This year, the SEL Integration activities at school and express high classrooms and a self-contained school. Committee members, in collabora- Education and Treatment of Children, expectations for himself/herself. tion with classroom teachers, are 34(1), 15-33. rolling out the Devereux Student This nationally recognized tool, Office of Special Education Programs. Strengths Assessment (DESSA), a (n.d.) Technical Assistance Center designed to measure individual stu- on Positive Behavioral Interventions comprehensive system that supports dent social-emotional competencies, & Supports. U.S. Department of intervention planning, progress will help classroom teachers better Education. Retrieved on October 27, 2013 at http://pbis.org/ monitoring, and outcome evaluation understand the SEL needs of their in the social-emotional domain. It Roughan, L., & Hadwin, J.A. (2011). students and allow our counseling The impact of working memory has been designed to help schools staff to create more targeted group training in young people with social, meet the emerging social-emotional and individual IEP counseling goals. emotional and behavioural difficulties. learning standards. In particular we Learning and Individual Differences, 21(6), 759-764. would expect to see continued It is hoped that the results from the growth and development in self- DESSA can be used to strengthen U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Individuals with Disabilities Education management: a child’s success in our Focus Friday efforts going for- Act. Retrieved October 25, 2013, from controlling his or her emotions and ward, yielding information that can http://idea.ed.gov/ behaviors, to complete a task or suc- better enable our teachers in target- Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. ceed in a new or challenging situa- ing students with extreme text anxi- (n.d.) http://ei.yale.edu/ruler/the- anchors-of-emotional-intelligence tion. This competency may be ety so that we can step in to

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