Episode 21: What to Do After Testing (When Everyone Is Checked Out) | The Edu20/20 Podcast

Welcome back to the Edu20/20 Podcast… and yes, this is the season finale.

We’re talking about that very specific time of year. Testing? Done. Kids? Done.
Teachers? Definitely DONE.

And somehow, you still have weeks left. This episode is all about what to do with that time-- keeping things meaningful without making it harder on yourself. We’re sharing what we’ve tried, what worked, what didn’t, and how to use this stretch of the year in a way that still feels worth it.

There’s a mix of ideas in here:
• Trying new strategies without the pressure
• Giving students more ownership and voice
• Creative ways to revisit content without it feeling repetitive
• Projects, reflection, and actually building humans (not just finishing standards)

Chapters:
0:00 Last episode energy (and why this time of year is weird)
2:23 What to do after testing ends
3:42 Using this time to try new strategies
5:42 Creative projects that still connect to content
7:30 Letting students give feedback (and actually listening)
10:34 Making review meaningful instead of busywork
13:46 Prioritizing what actually matters
15:07 Ending the year on a high note

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome back to the Edu2020 podcast. My name is Courtney. I'm Shannon. And we are collectively, along with some other cool people known as Edu2020, our specializing. Our specialization is in what, Shannon? What do we specialize in? Simplifying education for educators. Keeping it simple by saying education three times. No, I'm joking. Um, we are gonna be talking about some fun things, but it also is a rather sad day, Shannon.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

How why is it sad? This is our last episode of season one. Oh, well, you know what? Because teachers are almost on summer break and they're like, oh, let us, yes, have our reprieve. As you should. And I brought brought my extra sparkle. I was gonna say, you have tried to show me up with your outfit today. If you can't see, if you're just listening, Courtney is in full sparkle mode, channeling Kim Mulkey vibes.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yes, channeling my inner Kim Mulkey. Um, yes, this is, I just figure, you know how like different seasons of TV shows have like these big, flashy finales.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

This is what I'm bringing to the table today, literally and figuratively. Um, for those of you who can't see us, we're sitting at a table, just so you know. But I'm also kind of getting ready next month. Well, when y'all are listening to this, it'll be May. Yeah. And we have a big event. So, my Louisiana teachers, if you're gonna be at Teacher Leader Summit, we're doing a sip and sparkle. A lot of people we did one two years ago and it was backed by popular demand. So if you are listening and you are going to Teacher Leader Summit in Louisiana in May, you're gonna want to check out our Where your flashiest sparkles and come join us and take pictures.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

It's gonna be so great.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

But anyway, we got to talk about the task at hand, which is this episode. For those of you who've never seen an episode before or heard an episode, we talk a lot, a lot of nerdy stuff, a lot about a lot, a lot of nerdy things. And um, if you haven't seen the after hours episodes, we do not talk about nerdy things there. We talk about inappropriate things, we talk about real life life stories, we just never know what's real life to get. But today, Shannon, on our final episode of season one, what are we going to be discussing?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Well, it right now, at the time of filming, we know that state testing is happening. And then after that, we get into that special time of year where I used to call it the wasteland, no man's land, after testing. Um, that time in May where you finish with state testing, kids feel done, teachers feel done, your room is still naked from state testing. What do we do with ourselves, Courtney?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

So we are gonna talk about what you can do with what little time you have left after state testing with your kiddos. That keeps the learning going, yes, but still maintain some high energy and positivity. It's it's a great opportunity to not just put on a movie, although sometimes you just need to put on a movie. Um you still have some people still have content to cover, which is insane. Right. Right, right. But you want to make it fun, you still want to make it meaningful. So we're gonna just talk about some a few ideas today that you could possibly use in your classrooms if you are done with stay testing when you're listening to this. I really hope you are for your sake. Um, so Shannon, I'm gonna have you kick us off. Uh-huh. Whenever, let's talk about our own experiences first. Whenever you would finish stay testing with your kiddos, what would be your go-to thing? What would you cover with your students?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Um, field day. No, I'm just kidding. I mean, yes, we did do that too. It was like the home. Field day is the but it was the jam too, though. I mean, if you have a cool co-teacher, you know that you get that like we we went all out and it was super fun. But as far as content, um, okay, you're gonna think I'm a nerd, and that's okay. There's people out there, they're gonna they're going to identify with me and understand me. Sure. Um, but that's when I would get wild um and would try out new skills. I know. I know, I know. Now I'm gonna go back to a blast from the past, but I had gone to a PD um where I learned all about accountable talk moves. And this was when I was first letting go of not being in control all the time. You know what? It's hard to let go. I know, I know, but because I I was always so worried about my scores and making sure they had the right content, but that was a time when I could just practice letting go. Um and I started small. So it was after evaluation time. Right, right. So, you know, if it didn't go well, it's okay, or I could say this was for me, or no, this is not for me, or this worked really well with my kids. So I would still cover some content that needed to be covered, but the first year I tried embedding that student discourse, I started small and it was after testing. Did it work? Well, I'll I'll even go and embarrass myself a little bit further. I like this. It's when I first started practicing getting out of rows and into groups because I was like hardcore, like in control. And I wanted to be a little more flexible and get them to do more of the talking and more of the thinking. I was doing all the work. So basically, you use it to practice new skills for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

It's like a practicum. Yeah, I did. I did a little field test. Okay. Kind of making you think outside the box and and I mean really getting them ready. I think that that's something that um a lot of people would in in theory love to do. Like, look at what's coming up in the next year and what do they need to be really good at, or even if you knew the teacher in the next grade level and their expectations, preparing your kids for that. Because sometimes it would be a like I am not your average teacher. I don't know if you knew that about me. Um, I don't take myself too seriously. And some people did. So I was like, well, this is gonna be the expectation next year. It wasn't just a scary thing, it was like you need to be ready for this. Right. Um, but that's that's a good idea just to try some new things out for sure. Um, some things that I would do, I was a little bit more unconventional, and I liked doing things like um write a letter to the incoming, you know, blank graders. So if they were leaving sixth grade, because I was an ELA social studies teacher, um, they would write a letter either to the people coming in or to their future selves. And so it was just another way to practice ELA and kind of had them reflect. I mean, you could tie theme in somewhere in there as well if you really wanted to get nerdy. Like what theme did you learn this year through your experiences? Name one event and tell me what you learned. Uh, but I tried to keep it literacy basically. Native writing is a lost art right now. It's a lost art. It wasn't tied to a text, but it was tied to their experience in the classroom. Right. So it was just a little life skill. It was just a little fun, you know, activity that they had to do. Now, there are other years where I did crazy things. Like we did uh one year, my sixth graders, we actually I had them um take one of the texts we read that year. So they had to go. I made a list of all of the texts that they had read. And I was like, you're gonna pick your favorite one, and you can pick your group mates, and you're gonna create a like I literally made them create a puppet show with socks. They were sixth graders, and they freaking loved it. They had to write a script that kind of retold the story. Yeah. Um, and but they had to tell it like from a different character's perspective, and they had to go act it out. It was hilarious, and they loved it. It was just something different, yeah. That was outside of the box, and it still included the literacy moves, but it was fun and they enjoyed it. I filmed it, they brought props. It was a whole they love that. It was a lot of nerdy fun. So that was another thing I did, and it just made the time go by a lot faster and it felt more meaningful. Like I wasn't just putting them on busy work, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Right, yeah. Anything else you tried? Well, I here was another skill that I practiced that um I didn't mention previously, but I think I told the the students, I said, okay, I'm getting ready for next year's class. This was middle school, yeah. And I said, and I want to try a new uh routines and behaviors um because it was a new behavior strategy, some that I learned. And I'm like, you know how you go to PD's and you're like, yeah, I don't think that'll work with my kids. But I was in, yeah, um, because they sound too good to be true. And I'm like, well, I'm just gonna try it. We'll see. Because I had found it over my career that it was in the trying things that I grew the most. Yeah. And I figured out like some things didn't work for me, but some things did. But I was able to tell my kids, we've been doing this this way, but I'm thinking about this, and I want to get your feedback. Um so can I talk about that for a second? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Shannon one time told me about something she did, and I never thought to do this, and we did it all the time in college, but you were really good about surveying your kids at the end of the day. I always gave an end-of-the-year survey. So tell us a little bit about like what you put in that and how you use those answers that they gave you.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So the it evolved over time, um, the more that kids would open up and tell me uh about things, but um, I would ask specific questions like logistics questions, like what was easiest about your materials this year, or how the class routines ran, or what was the hardest thing about this year, what could have been better? Or um I even had them rate, I I had to be really vulnerable, but I even had a little one to five Likert scale rating of my uh on several questions of my teacher believed I could learn. Oh, and it was anonymous and and they knew it was completely anonymous. Um, but my my teacher um like basically questions that would indicate to me my teacher saw me or understood how I learned best or things like that. But I I learned like how to switch up the bathroom schedule. Like I took those into your survey results and realized we we didn't have enough um bathroom routines, or that this was back when we were using lockers, but the locker schedule was not working very well. Yeah um because they were forgetting things, or this really stressed me out this year, or this was the easiest thing that we did, or the most helpful thing that we did.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I could see that being very helpful for their next teacher, right? So it was like the next grade level. Yeah. Um, but I also could see working really well at the beginning of the year. What did you like about last year that we can replicate? What is something you'd like to tell me in preparation for this year, right, that you would make you have a better experience? Like how powerful is that to give the students a voice in their learning experience? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

I know we just recorded an episode about study guides, but it was through one of those surveys that my kids said um I would have appreciated more study guides or some things to study for quizzes, because I was also giving quizzes at the time, not just tests, but they wanted some something to study for for a quiz.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Um, so I learned so much valuable information. So end of the year surveys are fabulous, and you can even do a search or have your favorite AI chatbot help you write some really good quality, like what are some things that I need to know looking back on the year?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I like that. Um, one year when I did social studies, we learned it was sixth grade content, then it's fourth grade content now. Uh we learned about all of the different civilization, ancient civilizations. And so we studied, you know, the Egyptians, we studied the Mesopotamians, et cetera, et cetera. So at the end of the year, instead of just, you know, filling the time with something, I made them create their own civilization. So giving them some type of project that puts them still back in the context. But they had to actually think about like I know people use grapes, you know, geography, religion, architecture, I think it's called. I thought you were about to give me a snack, sorry. No, unfortunately, no food today. Um, but they had to create their own elements of a civilization and and like draw a map. Where's it located? Why is it located there? So it was just again an extension of the learning, but it was more personalized and like you said, application. Um, we did a lot with like social, think about social media, having them do things. Um, like I know a lot of teachers do think about a person from the past, a character, George Washington, right? Right. Create an Instagram post from his perspective or write, uh pretend like you're creating, I don't know, somebody's timeline. Napoleon's timeline of Louisiana Purchase on Twitter. You can only use four, or I'm sorry, X. Uh you can only use 140 characters or less. You have to use hashtags, things like that. Again, it's it's still going back over content, but it's in a fun way, and it doesn't feel as laborious for you as a teacher. Right. And I mean, you can still take it for a grade because it is content. And you know you still need grades, even though it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Oh my gosh, last month of getting grades for final report cards.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Oh my gosh, right? And like I've had the experience as a teacher. So how do we make those meaningful and not just fluff grades? I've seen, like, I've had my my own students, they were graded on a crossword puzzle, or my kids were, and I'm like, I was stupid. Like, you that's not that's not a good measure of what they've they've learned or what they're still learning.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Is that really an accurate grade?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

So make it meaningful, but make it fun because it's the time of year where they're fried. Like the teachers are fried, the kids are fried. Make it fun, make it interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

But you can still connect it to content.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

What advice do you have for those teachers who still like are required to use the curriculum and required to finish those units?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I mean, I would finish them. I would just find fun ways to incorporate different activities, a lot more brain breaks, because at that point, like they know the year is over.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

You know, so you just have to take a different spin on it. And you can, I would I love your idea of hey, we're gonna field test some things for next year.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

A lot of times when you tell kids that they feel like, oh, we're important, we can't screw this up. Uh and so they they'll get into it. Yeah, but I would try some new strategies. I know, like one year we did a strategy, and this sounds wild, but it worked of just doodling. So instead of doing annotations, I know there's so much research on that. Yeah, today, today, instead of doing our regular annotations of the margins, you're gonna be in charge of doodling. So after every chunk of text you read, you're gonna draw a picture of what's happening in the text. That's brilliant. Something fun and a different approach. Uh-huh. Um, bring out the whiteboards for math. Don't do shaving cream spelling. If you don't know about that, go watch the after hours episode about shaving cream spelling. Um, but I would just I would try to find more creative ways. And I know we're always trying to find creative ways, but you got to get real creative at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Well, one last uh uh like um suggestion that I have would be for May to do some batch planning, especially if you're required to finish your curriculum or something like that. But look at the most important content and how does it connect to what they're learning in the next grade? Because one thing that you I've learned from you, it's all in how you frame it. So if you frame it to students, like I know we have a little overlap, say from sixth grade to seventh grade social studies at uh the standards, you know, like you're learning this, but you're gonna revisit this at the beginning of next year. So let's land this, what you have to know to be a seventh grader, you know. So that's a good thing to do, but also that batch planning of what's the most important content I need to get through. How am I going to get through that in a meaningful way that still keeps them involved and invested? So I like your ideas.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

And I mean, I would go to the standards because like a lot of times in May, you have a lot of early dismissal days, you have a lot of assemblies, awards. So much when you're looking at your planning, go back to the standards and think what is the most important stuff I've got to cover? Because there's some, there's a lot of content still left for some people. Like really prioritize what you're doing. And if you are done with your content, think about like I just always go back to like how can I enrich now that the content's done, how can I enrich them as humans? And just thinking about like those letters to your future self. Yeah, that's powerful for them. Like, I think a skill, a life skill that we're missing as humans is being reflective. And so you're actually teaching your kiddos to reflect on what they've learned this year, what have been the most powerful stories or experiences they've had. Yeah. Like I'm I'm just all about I'd love to be able to build the human the entire year, and I try to, but sometimes you know, I'm I'm inundated with curriculum and grades and all of that. Requirements, right? The end of the year is when I really get to celebrate the human and and um develop the human. And so if you don't have to cover content, like really focus on that human side and enjoying what little time you have left with your kiddos, because you know, you're always counting down to the end, and then when the end comes, you're like, oh, it went so fast, even though it didn't. Uh it just feels it's sad. And so I would definitely maximize my time by spending time on the humans in my classroom.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah. Well, one thing that you're always great about reminding your audiences of is that you um get out of something what you put into it. And so just that those final moments where you you just don't end on a positive note where you just feel like the life is drained out of you. Anything that you can do to set yourself up for success. And hopefully we've given you some great ideas today for that last little sprint toward the finish line. I know, I know right at the end of the tunnel. We have seen, and this is gonna be coming out pretty soon, but we were in 394 classrooms this past year. That's insane. We've seen some incredible educators. I mean, students learning, doing the things, and we're so proud and impressed. Really exciting of the great state of Louisiana and our teachers and all the teachers out there putting that investment in. You're doing a great job, and congrats on finishing another school year.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

We are looking forward to season two and being back with you again um in August. Yeah. And so if you haven't done so, like, subscribe, do all the things, follow us on social media because we are gonna want to hear from you what topics you want to hear about in season two. We're really excited, and we cannot wait to see you up in our next season. And Shannon, do you want to sign us off one more time?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

All right, we'll see you next time.