At a Glance
At the Chester County Technical High School-Pennocks Bridge 2015 “Eggstravaganza” event, two student teams battled to prove their NOCTI knowledge and teachers smashed eggs on their heads for every question answered correctly.
Overview
Recognizing the need to improve NOCTI scores, administrators consulted with Distinguished School Leaders (CTDSLs) on NOCTI data analysis methods. The CTDSLs recommended Todd Lukes system for NOCTI Task Linked Reports; it identifies content areas where review or re-teaching could improve student scores.
Learning Support teachers, program teachers, administrators, and school counselors agreed on the need to create a proactive, school-wide event to engage everyone in a competitive, fun, and exciting manner by showcasing seniors knowledge of sample NOCTI questions. The school counselor, who saw the Jimmy Fallon skit “Egg Russian Roulette,” in which Jimmy and his guest take turns smashing eggs on their heads without knowing which are cooked and which are raw, suggested that the game could be adapted for the school.
Teachers created a friendly competition within their programs to select the best senior to represent their program in the “Eggstravaganza” event. On the day of the event, the selected seniors were divided into two teams: Team “Eggcellent” and Team “Eggsperts.” Teachers, who were also divided into two teams, volunteered to smash eggs on their foreheads to earn points for each team if the senior got the NOCTI question correct. The entire student body witnessed the “Eggstravaganza” in a school-wide assembly and cheered for their represented senior and team.
The NOCTI “Eggstravaganza” helped students to focus their attention on the importance of content knowledge and to showcase that knowledge through responses to sample NOCTI test questions. It was also designed to build enthusiasm and support for the NOCTI test by creating a positive, fun assessment strategy to which all students could relate, especially within the school-wide environment.
For teachers, the NOCTI “Eggstravaganza” provided a positive, student-centered, data-driven, school-wide focus on the need to re-teach and review content. It was a process to increase a teachers awareness of data and its relationship to content, teaching and assessment. It also highlighted how data is used in todays educational environment as a component of the Teacher Effectiveness Evaluation system.
Origin / Implementation
In preparation for the “Eggstravaganza”, teachers discussed how data can be analyzed to pinpoint targets for instructional improvement and how that improvement impacts their evaluation. They were encouraged to re-teach or review content to improve learning and student scores.
Faculty members viewed the Jimmy Fallon Egg Russian Roulette video during a staff meeting. They created a visual to engage students by promoting the event and challenging them to highlight their knowledge and skills related to the NOCTI assessment. During the event, a video was recorded to capture the game show-like atmosphere.
Results / Impact
Preliminary NOCTI results indicated an increase in NOCTI 2015 pre-post test scores for the Competent/Advanced category by 8% and the Advanced category by 10%. The impact of this culminating school-wide event was to continue to emphasize a strong data-driven culture that helped to eliminate test anxiety by generating a positive attitude toward taking a standardized test. As the students and teachers become more familiar with utilizing the data to learn, they become better able to search and learn the tasks that they are lacking and celebrate the ones that they are exceeding.
Contact
Name: Angela King
School: Chester County Technical High School-Pennocks Bridge
Title: School Counselor
Email: angelak@cciu.org
