4. 3-minute meditations
Mindfulness techniques and tips are everywhere, and for good reason. In a busy student’s day, it is so important to slow down, quiet the mind, and practice simple strategies that help reduce test anxiety and offer lifelong skills for tackling worries. Here is a video that can be shown along with the exercise video, or you can alternate these so the strategies do not become redundant. Better yet, if you have a teacher trained in yoga, have him or her create a mindful breathing video.
A bonus tip: We offer a test quote of the day, by a teacher, on our morning announcements. These are sensible tips, like making sure you arrive at school on time. By hearing faculty do this, students make a stronger connection since they usually have one or more of these teachers. We also blast videos out to parents the day before a testing day so they can reinforce this at home. Here is one of these short tip videos.
Related: 10 things I do to boost my students’ self-esteem
Again, all of these can operate as standalone or combined strategies to help reduce anxiety in advance of a major test or standardized assessment. Any combination strengthens the benefit students receive by having multiple strategies. By setting up a framework that allows students to draw on multiple approaches, they benefit from the likelihood that they are better equipped to face the assessment. At the same time, they can reduce their anxiety in ways that can teach them to generalize this life skill. What better way to teach than offer short-term strategies that also work as lifelong ones?
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