It sounds like you may be a second grade teacher since your students are taking the CoGAT. One thing that I would encourage you to do is have your students write on a sticky note or index card their feelings towards testing. One sticky note will have positive feelings and the other sticky note will have negative or "not so good feelings about testing." Make sure students put their name on the sticky or index card. Hang the positive sticky notes on a poster board or bulletin board. During testing when you see students exhibiting the positive behaviors you put a sticker by the positive behavior you see them exhibiting. After 5 stickers students earn a reward. Take the negative sticky notes and before the test have the students ball them up and throw them away. Explain that you are doing away with the negative and only focusing on the positive during testing. Hopefully this will help!

One solution could be having your students set goals for their tests. That way they are working towards a goal that they set. That may be a little motivating!

I feel like my 7th graders are over tested and at their age level it is so hard to keep them motivated. I have tried to create a visual reminder for them when we get into a month or two where we have a particularly ridiculous amount of testing. We create a bar graph and compare our scores on each of the assessments (if they are comparable) to see if we have gotten better. We make huge graphs on butcher paper and post them on the wall. I have tried to create competition among the classes, but I teach a gifted class, an advanced class, a regular class and a co-taught/IEP class and the students pick up on that and the unfairness of that comparison. I have offered incentives for classes based on student growth. We look at our past test scores and if students score 5-10% higher (as a class) on the next one, then we have some sort of celebration. You have to find out what works for your kids to keep them motivated. Try everything. I'm not sure we will ever get rid of the crazy amount of testing, but we have to do the best we can with our kids to help them be successful no matter what.

I would definitely try a reward. Maybe a classroom movie or field trip to their favorite place. Something to ease their mental frustration after all of those tests. Trust me, if I had a reward like that in high school after those tests, I would always be excited for tests!

We have a lot of tests in our county also. I just try to motivate students before the tests to do their best and teach them the importance of the tests.

I have actually heard from teachers that the opposite works - to treat them like an every day occurrence. In doing this, there is no special hype to stress them out. The students can actually do the work the way they normally would.

Remind them of the end of each quarter. Remind them that each test that is done is one less that they will have to take in the future. Once these tests are done, the students should be promised a fun carefree day to reward them for participation.

I think we are looking for ways to treat the symptoms, instead of fighting the cause of the symptoms. Yes, by that I mean that we are over testing our students. I understand that as teachers we have to abide by the guidelines set forth. But we do have a voice, and it may take time and a lot of voices, but we can have an effect on the amount of testing we are administering.

Rewards seem to work for me! My Kindergartners have to take loads of tests as well! They seem to perform for food. You might want to try rewarding them for their performance using candy. It would be worth a shot!

Tests are something that wouldn't ever go away but I wish students didn't have to take so many.