I chose several methods and formats for assessing my students as we moved through the unit. The pre-assessment I gave, while showing me how much they knew or didn’t know about the unit also told me how they worked on in class reading and writing assignments as well as giving me a gauge on their writing ability and how well they could communicate problems and/or ask clarifying questions.

            On the second day of the unit I had them do a Countries and Continents “check”. They had just finished a World Religion and Continents and Oceans unit and I wanted to see how much of that previous lesson they had retained. This was to accomplish two things for me. I would be able to see how much of the previous lesson they remembered or had forgotten over 2 weeks as well as see if they knew any other countries in the Eastern Hemisphere that we hadn’t gone over since most of the class hadn’t done on the pre-assessment map question. As discovered after looking through them, on average the class did not do well with an average score of 1.80 I knew that was one thing I would need to revisit. Since my lesson plan already had the Personal Atlas as an activity I was hopeful that would be enough to help jar their short term memory and increase their long term memory for the world map.

            The third day of the unit I started the lesson with a “quick write” about their social groups to see how well they could pull together their ideas in a short amount of time as well as find out how much they understood about one of the elements of culture-social groups.  I discovered that most of them were only able to describe social groups that had been mentioned in class, which led me to believe they did not have a proficient understanding of this element. This was an informal assessment and I did not grade it.

            On that same day, the third day of the unit, the students took Cornell style notes about the lesson on culture. During the small group discussion they had talked about the elements of culture and how it fit into describing a culture, but in the large group discussion we talked specifically about the elements that describe or make up a culture and they took notes during this time. I asked them as a class to agree on what the major idea was that they needed to write down and then we had a short discussion on what they read as well as my clarification of what the book talked about for that element and then they decided as a class what they would write down. I wanted to them to do this exercise for two reasons: to see how well they could hear something and translate that to a written sentence or note, as well as see how well they were able to take comprehensive notes. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well they did as a class on this assessment. I did grade this assignment and their class on average received a 3.25.  The criteria I was grading the students on in this assignment was primarily how clear their definition of the element was, I allowed examples as well as the definitions the class came up with because I understand some students do really well using examples to remember details.  Because the students did so well taking notes this way I used the same format to have them take notes two more times during the 10 day unit. Of those who turned the notes in they did just as well on the second set of notes during a lecture. For a reason I am unable to explain, most of the students did not turn those in. The only thing I can do is speculate as to the reason why but I wouldn’t be able to say for sure. I also asked them to take notes while they were researching on the internet, and on average they didn’t do as well as when they took notes during the class discussions which leads me to believe they either struggle with that format, or there are a number of students who rely on the help of their classmates (not necessarily their elbow partners (next door neighbors).

            For the homework assignments that I sent home with this class I wanted to not only make sure they were actually reading the packets, but I wanted to assess their ability to take the information they read and apply it to questions that required they think beyond the direct context of the chapter. In order to accomplish this I created a set of Small Group Questions which they would complete in groups of no more than 3 students per group. On average the students did very well on that first small group reading assignment with an average score of 4. Every group turned in answers that were complete and well thought out. The second small group reading assignment didn’t turn in as good of an average score at a 3, but an average score of 3 showed me that they still were doing the reading, they just weren’t turning in as complete of answers as before.  I believe the reason for the lower average on this assignment was due to the complex nature of the subject, and we did not go over it as completely in other lessons or class assignments as we had for the first reading assignment. The last reading assignment and small group discussion had a

            In addition to the writing assessments I gave the students I also quizzed them on their comprehension of the elements we had been talking about. On the fourth day of the unit I quizzed the students on their memory by asking them to write a list of as many of the 8 elements of culture they could remember and on overage they remembered just over half and received a 2.75.  There were a couple of people who remembered all 8 elements, the majority remembered 4 or 5. I graded that quiz and handed back to them the next day so that they could see how they did and they would know what to focus on for the final test in just over a week.  

            The only other thing I graded students on was the Personal Atlas, which was a project we worked on in class and had a specific number of elements to label and draw, the point of which was to help solidify the group lessons we did about geography.  Of the students who turned those in, they received an average score of 3. The fact that 12 students didn’t even turn it in surprised me immensely especially since it’s a project we did in class. There were a few students who wanted to take them home to work on them, but forgot to bring them back in, regardless of the number of times I asked them to remember they still forgot. The only thing I did not do to help them remember was to contact their parents which I would certainly do in the future. I believe at this stage in their development there are a number of students who still need help remembering things like that, by calling their parents and soliciting their assistance on this matter, I believe it would help decrease the number of students who didn’t turn in work because they kept forgetting.

            There were a few other formative writing assessments that I had the students do. Exit Passes were one of my favorite informal assessments. I would ask them to recall a certain number of facts from the lesson on that particular day or I would ask them to make-up a short story to increase the chance that they were making a connection to the lesson.

            I discovered on the first day that I started teaching; I had a class full of students who liked to read, draw and write. Knowing that on multiple occasions I asked them to draw me a picture or write me a story on the back of their exit passes when they finished.  I tried to utilize that as much as possible to help make the lessons fun and more interesting.

            In addition to these written assessments there were some skills I watched for on a daily basis, including the student’s ability to work in a group, communicate effectively and ask clarifying questions.  In addition to academic skills I also looked for good manners and respect for their classmates and myself. I believe all of these skills lend toward being a better learner and citizen.

            Every element that I assessed the students on was meant to add to the richness of the student’s academic success. I thought carefully about the reason behind the assignments as well as what the implications were for a student who did not do the assignment and how the more highly involved (academically successful and/or hard-workers) students would be enriched by it. By giving every student an opportunity, everyday, to write in class there was an unexpected improvement in the quality of their work.  I saw the fluency of all of the students in class improve over two weeks. Similarly they began to write more without being asked to increase the length of the assignment.   

            If I look at two specific students and their improvement during the two weeks, one student (number 34 on the graph under the Students’ Work tab)  was always in class, she always turned in her work and did well on all her class work and homework; however, during the two weeks I was teaching her, I witnessed that she did poorly on her pre-assessments (She received a participation score of 4 on her pre-assessment, but her actual score was only a 1 or 15%.  Similarly on the first quiz the class took two days after that she only got a 1 on the quiz), but she made steady improvements in her work and her learning was evident when she received a 4 on her post-assessment (her actual percentage was a 90%). She is an example of a student who showed significant learning gains just over two weeks. On the other hand Student, 7 began with some knowledge (a little bit more than Student 34) of the subject receiving a 35% or a 1.5 on the pre-assessment and then on the post-assessment she received a 69% or 2.25. While she turned in all of her work, she didn’t make the same improvements. She actually consistently scored below “meets” on her quizzes, but she did well on her in-class assignments, especially when she was able to work in a group.

             On the other end of the spectrum from Student 34 is Student 18. He scored a 22% or a 1 on the pre-assessment, which was not that far off from the class average. Throughout the two weeks he was absent a few days and missed a few assignments and they never got made up, he also consistently score 2s on most of his work which showed me that he was sort of getting it, but not really. I believed that his absences were the cause of this inability to really “get” the information. After he’d missed a number of days I worked with him to check out a book to take home and get caught up on the reading as well as giving him print outs of the notes he’d missed. Despite that he still continued to turn in work that was only “2” quality work, and all of those were assignments he could turn in as part of a group. It wasn’t until we reached the time for the post-assessment that I thought something else might be going on. He had the post-assessment and as I wandered around the room checking in with all the students he was just sitting there staring at his paper. I asked him several times if he had a question or needed clarification on anything and he just said no, he was thinking. It wasn’t until the end of the class when he hadn’t done anything that I suspected that maybe he was having a hard time reading it.  I was allowing a few other students (ELLs) to have more time the next day to finish so I told him he could have more time then as well. He was sick the next day, but when he came back the day after that I took him to the library and sat with him. He again sat there staring at the paper, so I asked him if he would like me to read him the questions and he jumped right on that.

            I read him the entire test, and he was able to do some of it, but his final score ended up being a 16%, 6 percent less than his pre-assessment score. Because I didn’t have any more time with I wasn’t able to find out what was actually going on, but from this experience I have learned that I will be checking in with students sooner than after two weeks to see what is causing them to get low scores. Because this student was out so many days it was easy to miss that perhaps something else was going on; however, I believe now the additional steps I could take for a student with a similar situation in the future would be to call home after that first week to see if the parents or guardians need any additional support getting him caught up and I would also require him to come into class during his lunch period to get caught up.  Another lesson I learned working with this student, it’s amazing how fast students can slip if they miss a few days and perform below average on a few assignments. It makes it that much more clear to me how important communication between students and then communication between parents/guardians is in order to help the students succeed.

            Overall the class made significant learning gains. The average pre-assessment scores was 35% and the average post-assessment score was 62.7%. This shows an average class improvement of almost 28% with a couple of outliers that showed learning gains of 70% (student 34)  and 50% (student 20) and one student who missed the first 3 days of the 10 day unit and got a 96% (student 5).  I am pleased with the learning gains of the class as a whole, but I look to those students who struggled to make the smallest learning gains like students 17 and 31 who make significant learning gains of 13 and 21 percent (respectively) but there overall percentage on the post-assessment was less than 43%.  Those are the students I think about when I check to see how the class did. I have witnessed how difficult it can be to ensure you are differentiating instruction for all the students in the classroom and it will be something I focus on more as I enter into the next phase of my education.