The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition

Teaching on Empty: It's Testing Time Series

Part 3: Stop doing all the talking. Your students need the reps.

The REAL Story

Test prep week in most classrooms looks like this: teacher at the board, working through problems, just yapping away while students are copying. A few may ask questions but mostly students zoned out or students just watching you.

And I get it. You are tired, you feel behind, and it feels faster to get through the math review by just showing them. But the person doing the talking is usually the person doing the learning. And right now that person is probably you.

I used to run test prep like a highlight reel of everything I taught. I would pull up the standards, pick the hardest problem types, and walk my students through them one by one. I thought I was being effective and thorough. What I was actually doing was giving myself a workout while my students sat there passively absorbing content they had already seen.

The week before a test is not the time for more instruction. It is the time to get students thinking out loud about math they have already seen, defending their reasoning, catching their own mistakes, and explaining their thinking to someone other than you. That looks very different from what most of us were taught to do during test prep. But if the goal is for students to solve problems independently on the test, then the final days before it should be built around giving them as many opportunities as possible to practice doing exactly that.

💡 3 Structures That Move Students From Recall to Critical Thinking

1️⃣ Error Analysis + Fix the Wrong Work

Put a worked problem on the board with a mistake somewhere in it. Do not tell them where it is. Ask: What do you notice? Where did this student go wrong? How do you know? Once students identify the error, their next job is to fix it and finish the problem correctly. This combination hits harder than solving a new problem from scratch because students have to hold two things at once: what was done and what should have been done. That is exactly the kind of thinking a test requires.

2️⃣ Student Explanation Routines

After any problem, cold call a student and ask them to explain the solution to the class, not read it but explain it. Then ask a second student: Do you agree? What would you add or change? You are not looking for perfection. You are looking for mathematical reasoning in their own words. If they can explain it, they own it. This routine also tells you in real time which students have only surface-level answers and which ones actually understand what they did and why.

3️⃣ Same Problem, Different Numbers

Take a problem your students already worked and swap out the numbers or the context while keeping the same mathematical structure. Give it to them cold with no setup. This move tells you whether students learned the concept or just memorized the steps for that specific problem. If they can transfer what they know to a new set of numbers, they are ready. If they freeze, you just found out something important with enough time left to address it.

The Close

By the time test week arrives, most of your students are not seeing this math for the first time. What they usually lack is the chance to work through it without the teacher stepping in the moment things get uncomfortable. When review week turns into the teacher explaining problem after problem, students never have to wrestle with the thinking long enough to strengthen it.

Tests do not reward students for remembering what the teacher said. They reward students who can recognize patterns, catch mistakes, and decide what strategy makes sense when no one is standing next to them guiding the next step.

That is why the final days before a test should feel different in your classroom. Instead of another round of explanations, the room should be filled with students analyzing incorrect work, defending their reasoning, and working through problems together until the math starts to make sense on their own terms. When that happens, review week stops being a recap of what you taught and becomes the practice students actually need before they sit down to solve the problems by themselves.

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Tiffany Smith, Ed. D., Your Culturally Responsive Math Specialist

Founder, Education Evolution, LLC | Creator, The REAL Framework™ | Creator of Mind the Gap Curriculum™

"Here’s to classrooms filled with real growth, real talk, and REAL results."

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