You can see in my pre and post-assessment data my students scores. The rows in red are my students with IEPs. The student highlighted in blue is the ELD student--I did not label my six students who's primary language at home is Spanish, or the one student whose primary language at home is Russian since I could not fine any other documentation on them. Even thought I did not have further documentation on their level of proficiency in English, I am glad I was aware of the possibility. I did see improvements with these students, specifically my student whose first language is Russion. My ELD student, T.Z., went from a 40% to a 100%. I always made sure she had the printed notes, and checked in with her understanding throughout my unit. She was proud of her essay, which is what I hope for with all my students. I want them to be proud and to care about their work. All of my students  with IEPs had improvements but one. The one that had a 4 for both the pre and post-assessments filled out his graphic organizer really well written, but he lost it sometime between class on Thursday and Friday. I told him that I had seen his graphic organizer all filled out, that I wouldn't make him fill a new one out, and that he could just write his experience paragraph. He got discouraged. He had worked really hard on the graphic organizer was upset he had lost it. His IEP says he has an emotional disorder and when discouraged he gives up. If I could have worked with just him during the whole class, I could have focused him and encouraged him, but I couldn't do that to the readt of the class. I told him that he could come in during lunch or after school and he said no. He turned in his essay with just half of one paragraph. That's why he got a four. He got full participation points for doing his graphic organizer, but not for the essay. If I would have had him in class for longer, I would have given him a different assignment that assessed the same thing to give him another chance, but time did not allow that.

The overall outcome of the gain--just over 40%--in my class was nice. I went into this not knowing what to expect since it was my very first time teaching freshman. It was exciting to see certain students connect and grow. I'm very proud of the students who put a lot of effort into their essays. I had four students come in outside of class for help, and that was fun. One thing that was hard for me to get used to was not being able to have one on one instruction with each student, so it was nice when they come in after school. The post-assessment I gave my students was used as a proficiency by my supervising teacher, and four of my students raised their total grade by a whole letter--they were pretty excited about that. During parten conferences, I was able to tell students and their parents that my essay could raise their grade significantly and I think that push helped.

My disappointment is in the fact that I had seven students who I didn't receive post-assessments from. I could blame this on the fact that it was just before their week break from school that I gave my post-assessment, but I don't think it's fair to put the blame there. Especially since it's something that I can't control. What I can control is trying to figure out what I could have done differently, or what I can be aware of in the future. The thing that has been lingereing in my mind, and what I will be doing for my research, is what motivates students to do their work. I've been surprised by the amount of students who don't do their homework or even the work everyone else is doing in class. For example, with the first homework assignment I gave, I had fourteen out of thirty students hand it in. My supervising teacher said that that was a pretty good turn out. I was shocked. I guess this is just something I hadn't thought of before. My seven students who didn't do my post-assessment are prime examples of this. A few things I have learned from this is to be aware of the timing of my assignments, getting know individual students needs, and trying to make assignments seem worth while to my students.