Deconstructing the Nystce: A Teacher's Guide to Passing the Eas and the Cst Students with Disabilities

Copyright © 2016 by Bridgette Gubernatis.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-5295-4

                eBook           978-1-5245-5294-7

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Rev. date: 11/07/2016

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Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 What is a Teacher according to the Constructivist Learning Approach?

Chapter 2 Trap Words to Avoid

Chapter 3 The Constructivist Approach to Education

Chapter 4 The EAS

Chapter 5 Trap Words to Avoid Explained

Chapter 6 The EAS Essays

Chapter 7 CST-Students with Disabilities Exam

Chapter 8 Special Education Categories and the Issues Mentioned on the CST-SWD

Chapter 9 The CST SWD Essay

Chapter 10 The Steps for the IEP under IDEA

Chapter 11 Test Taking Pitfalls

Chapter 12 Practice Quiz for both the EAS and CST SWD

Foreword

Why is this book different?

Hello Teacher,

I thought it was important to tell you why this book is different from other test prep books. To begin, it was written and compiled by a teacher who only teaches Test Prep. My name is Bridgette Gubernatis and I have been teaching NYSTCE test prep exclusively for the last eight years.

When I wrote my first study guide, I had just assumed that I had picked up a strategy based on the pattern of the wording of the tests. I’m an INTP personality profile in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (By the way I really recommend that everyone takes this test. It will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses in studying. You can find one online if you google Myers-Briggs.)

What is an INTP? Let’s see a description from a website:

https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality

THE LOGICIAN

Great Analysts and Abstract Thinkers – People with the INTP personality type view the world as a big, complex machine, and recognize that as with any machine, all parts are interrelated. INTPs excel in analyzing these connections, seeing how seemingly unrelated factors tie in with each other in ways that bewilder most other personality types.

They love patterns, and spotting discrepancies between statements could almost be described as a hobby, making it a bad idea to lie to an INTP.

As you can see, INTP’s love patterns. This is why I enjoy deconstructing tests and figuring out the pattern in the wrong answers and then sharing it with others. I also find patterns in the way people think and interpret questions. Figuring out how to create strategies to help test takers understand strategies to take a test is something that comes naturally to me, although it doesn’t for most people. Many of the teachers I get in my class are incredibly smart people who are just not good at taking timed exams.

At the same time, as I went through class after class teaching thousands of prospective teachers, I started hearing a regular form of feedback, (Another pattern. if you will.) Teachers in the class often came up to me and said, I learned more in this one day class than I have learned in my entire Master’s Degree program. That’s a pretty nice compliment even though it’s an exaggeration. What I realized is not that I had taught people more information or new information, but that I had shown them a meaningful connection between what they have learned and how it relates to teaching in real life. This understanding is the key to passing the tests because the tests are theoretical and based on the Constructivist Learning Approach.

Many of you have been immersed in Constructivism without realizing it. You have been taught about Piaget, Bloom, Gardner and Vygotsky as theorists, but for some reason no one ever took the time to connect them all together and explain the reason why these particular theorists are considered the experts.

One of the most common statements I have heard in the class is, I just had an AHA moment. I love when that happens. It makes what I do so much more than just Test Prep.

We run classes every week in Manhattan down by Wall Street so be sure to look online if you feel you need more support for passing the tests. Our Facebook page has lots of motivational videos and informational videos to help you combat your test anxiety. Our goal is that everyone passes the first time.

Cheers

Bridgette

Introduction

Why do I keep failing?

Over the years it seems that the test prep students I meet fall into two different categories. Some of my students have never taken a NYSTCE exam and decide to be proactive and prepare. But most of my students are desperate because they keep failing over and over again and they don’t know why.

It doesn’t seem to make any sense. Usually when I get a phone call from a prospective teacher, it is on the day the test scores have come out. The tension in the teacher’s voice is clear over the phone. The teacher has failed, sometimes by only 1 or 2 points. These teachers are stressed out because they have no idea what they are doing wrong.

When you think about it, the format of the test is really unfair. You never get the test back so you don’t know which questions you answered correctly and which answers were wrong. On top of this, the results are given in a plus sign format that gives no real feedback about your areas of weakness. How is a teacher supposed to interpret a ++ score? Teachers are disappointed, exhausted and frustrated. It can be very expensive to continually have to re-take the test over and over again.

Some of my teachers are ashamed. This bothers me the most. The teacher’s spouse or parents or friends are saying What is wrong with you, why can’t you pass the exam? And teachers are embarrassed and feel guilty. Teachers are also afraid. I have had students who have lost their jobs, even teachers who have almost lost their homes because of these tests.

The most frustrating part of the whole thing is that nothing that you see on the exam ever seems to come up in the real life situations of teaching. Most of the test takers, including myself, have said, What the heck does this have to do with teaching? I don’t use any of this in my job.

This is a very good question. But it is also the key to changing the mindset you use when taking the exam. It is precisely because you are taking the exam by trying to answer the questions based on what you do in the classroom, that you are failing the exam. The example I use to explain this to my students is a driver’s license exam. This is the equivalent of the type of test you are taking. It is the key to passing the exam.

The NYSCTE is like taking a Driver’s License Test?

Yes! It is important to think about what happens when you take a driver’s license test. When do you take a driver’s license test? You take it before you can start driving. The test is not compiled of questions testing your life-long experience as a driver. It is just testing you on the basics and the rules of driving. Can they trust you on the road to start driving?

By the time teachers are ready to take the NYSTCE, many have completed a Master’s degree or worse they have already started teaching in the classroom. Teachers are not necessarily taught the Constructivist Approach when attending college. Because these tests are so important for a teacher in his or her path to certification, the teacher will treat the test as a sophisticated exam based on the education they have received in college. This is the wrong idea. The NYSTCE is not that kind of exam.

I usually explain it to my students by using a driver’s test as an example:

Q:   What do you do in real life when you are driving and the light turns yellow?

A:   You slow down or prepare to come to a stop.

Q:   That is what you are supposed to do, but is it what you really do in real life?

A:   (Laughs!) Actually no, in real life I’d probably speed up because I don’t want to get stuck behind the red light.

Q:   So you actually do the opposite in real life of what you’d answer on the exam?

A:   Yeah that’s true!

Q:   Why did you answer it the other way?

A:   Because I know that is the answer they are looking for.

Q:   So you didn’t really think about it too much.

A:   No, I just knew that was the answer.

Think about this. When we drive on the road, most of us will break some of the rules. We cross a solid yellow line, we don’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign, we speed up when the light turns yellow, we cut people off and we don’t always signal when turning. This is our real life experience when driving. Yet we know not to choose any of these as answers to the questions on the exam.

The teaching exams have the same strategy. It’s the same type of exam: a licensing exam. This is a certification exam needed to get your teaching license, not a college exam. You take a drivers permit test because they want to make sure that you know the rules of the road before they let you on the road. You take a teaching certification exam because they want to make sure you know the rules of teaching before they let you in the classroom.

Part of the problem is that most schools do not follow the rules according to the Constructivist Approach. Even if your school does, most of us went to schools that didn’t follow the rules. So we’ve been immersed in the incorrect system where no one follows the rules.

This book is going to teach you the rules. As you learn the rules many of you will be surprised to find out that many of the things you are doing in the classroom are the opposite of what you are supposed to be doing. I very often have students in my class completely stunned by this realization. However, we’re not here to get you to change what you do in the classroom. We just want you to pass the test!

The Format of the Book:

The format of the book will be broken down in different categories. It is very important for you to read the section on the Constructivist Approach and Trap Words to Avoid. These sections will cover the rules in detail. The strategies used in these sections will help with the EAS and the CST Students with Disabilities exams.

If you are studying for the CST Students with Disabilities, make sure you read the entire book, including the EAS section. 60% of the test is based on the information in the section on the EAS. When teachers jump ahead and only read the SWD section they sometimes fail because they are missing key points for the exam.

Each test will have an explanation of strategy for the multiple-choice and also the essay. There will be practice essays and examples for each essay. I will try not to put too much information in the book so that it will be easier to read. However I will recommend resources for more information on topics with which you might not be as familiar. The purpose of this book is to be a strategy guide not a text book about teaching. You already know how to teach or you wouldn’t be taking this exam.

And please note that throughout the book I sometimes change font sizes. When possible I use a larger font for ease of reading. I also may have sections that have extra white space to be able to draw attention to images or charts. This is done deliberately to make this book as accessible as possible.

Chapter 1

What is a Teacher according to the Constructivist Learning Approach?

Two ways of Visualizing the Teacher:

Teacher as Swim Coach

According to the Constructivist Approach, teaching is more like coaching. I encourage my students to think of teacher as swim coach when preparing for the NYSTCE. What is the difference between how we think of a teacher compared to the way we think of a swim coach? A teacher is generally thought of someone who is