I taught a 4-week unit on world religions.  It was in a seventh grade geography lesson, between learning about maps and social justice.  I was given no guidance on what should be taught, how long I should take or the state standards the unit was covering.  After finding the state standards I had some idea of what I should teach.  The information in this unit was not built on previous units so I wanted to take it as slow as possible to give students a chance to process the information.

In this unit there was one test, a research poster and various smaller in class assignments.   The test was a short answer, open note test that had 14 questions and 1 bonus question.  I chose this format because my supervising teacher uses this kind of test and I wanted to give students a test in a format that they were familiar with.  The class grades for the test are shown in Appendix B, in Figure 2.1.  The class average for the test was 80%, which was higher than the post assessment scores, probably because this was an open note test and the post assessment was not.  Also, the post assessment required students to come up with their own answers and the test was short answer.  The test had 5 multiple choice questions and 9 true/false questions, followed by a short answer bonus question that required students to write a couple of sentences.  Each question was worth one point including the bonus question.  So the test was out of 14 but students could get 15 points if they got everything right including the bonus question.  Many students did not attempt to answer the bonus question, but everyone who answered it got it right.  The highest score was 15 and the lowest score was 5.  This is a big disparity in scores, which could only come from the second student not taking sufficient notes in class or not understanding the material.  The test covered 3 of the unit objectives because it required students to understand key religious terms and know the core beiefs of the 5 major world religions, which covered 2 of the 5 unit objectives.  The questions also related to the unit goals because it tested students’ understanding of world religions and the various components of them.  Students had 20 minutes to complete the test.

In the second lesson of the unit I asked students to write a reflection of what they learned in the class, either giving me their opinion, what they learned or a summary of a chart that I handed out.  The lesson covered Judaism and Christianity.  This was a participation grade that I graded on whether or not they did it and whether or not they did it thoughtfully.  Those that met both the above critea received a 5, those that only met one of the above criteria received a 3 and those that did not do it got a 2.  I gave a 2 because Judson Middle School has a no zero grading policy so I gave those students fewer points than the students who actually did the work.  My aim of this assignment was to get students to start thinking about religion so that I could attempt to meet the objectives and goals throughout the unit.  I also wanted to get a feel for where students were in their writing ability and the pace at which they work.  Students had 15 minutes to do this task.

In the third lesson of the unit I asked students to complete a table of comparison between Judaism and Christianity.  The table had 8 different categories to fill out for the 2 religions and, therefore, the table was out of 16 total points, 1 point for every correct answer given.  I asked students who were not in class that day to complete the table as homework.  Most students received high scores apart from 3 students who got lower grades of 7 or 8.  This assignment dealt specifically with the second objective, which stated that SWBAT compare three monotheistic religions, and although this exercise only compared 2 religions, I wanted students to get these two religions into their heads before they added another one to the mix, and I wanted them to practice comparing and contrasting.  Students had 20 minutes to complete the table.

In the fifth lesson of the unit I asked students to complete a number of tasks.  The first was to find definitions for a list of words (Can be found under Lesson Plan 5).  The second task was to answer 4 reflection questions about what they had learned in the unit so far, up unti this point we had covered monotheistic religions (Can also be found under Lesson Plan 5).  The third task was to creat a Venn diagram comparing Judiasm, Christianity and Islam.  I graded these 3 assignments out of 30 overall, with 10 points for each one.  I asked for 5 sentences for each of the reflection questions and more than 10 points on the Venn diagram but didn’t give many other specific guidelines.  I graded the definitions on whether they were correct, the Venn diagrams on whether they had at least 10 points and the reflection questions on whether they were answered thoughtfully.  These assignments covered three of the standards and all three of the goals for this unit.  It involved knowing and undertanding key terms and beliefs as well as comapring and contrasting 3 monotheistic religions.  It also got students to think about the universalty of religion and, hopefully, the refelction questions got students thinking about tolerance.  These tasks took up the whole sixty minute period.

In the sixth lesson I gave students questions to answer from the textbook about Hindusim and Buddhism.  I ran out of time to complete this assignment and I couldn’t give it to students to complete as homework because they don’t have textbooks to take home.  So I decided to grade this assignment out of 5, like I did for the refection.  I gave students 5 points for answering as many questions as they could in the time they had (approx. 8mins) and 3 or 4 points to students who did something that was proficient, and a 2 if they did not turn anything in.  This exercise focused on the the first, third and fifth unit objectives, or it would have if students were given more time to complete it.

In the seventh, eighth and ninth lessons the students researched minor world religions in groups.  They then complied a poster and filed out a worksheet about 4 other posters displayed around the room.  I created a rubric to grade the students, which I gave to them before they started their research.  It consisted of 5 items all on a scale of 1-5 with the total points being 25 (see rubric under Lesson Plan 9).  They were graded on the content of their posters.  This is in conjunction with standard 4 (SWBAT research a religion choosing important information and report the information on a poster). Each student was given a worksheet to fill in information about other group’s posters.  They had to write down four facts from 4 different posters.  This was to make sure that students were doing their work, actually reading other posters and knew something about the religions that other groups had researched.  These worksheets were graded out of 16, one point for every fact given and students could not write about their own posters.  This activity took three whole class periods, one for researching religions, one for compiling information and one for displaying their posters.

Graphs 3.1 and 3.2 in Appendix C show individual student data throughout the unit.  I picked 4 students to illustrate the range of scores received by the class at the end of the unit.  One student did very well, receiving full points for every assignment, showing that the top scores were attainable.  Another student got very low grades because she did not hand in all her assignments and she did not try to do any of her assignments well.  For the assignments she did not hand in I gave her 50% because of the no zero grading policy and the fact that she didn’t give the work to me by the time I finished my practicum despite the fact that I would ask her for it almost every day.  The third and fourth students that I chose for these graphs had average scores because I wanted to indicate the range of student scores for the unit.  Figure 3.3 in Appendix C shows the letter grades that students received at the end of the unit, which shows the distribution of overall grades for the unit.  This shows that some students gained more from the class than other students because there was a wide range of scores.  If grades indicate the level of knowledge that the student gained, then it is clear that some students gained a great deal more from this unit than others did.  This could have been due to the student’s interest in the topic or willingness to put in the work required.  It could also have been because some students related better to my teaching style and me as a person.

The way I calculated my grades was simple because the way my cooperating teacher did it was simple and I wanted to be consistent with him.  Every assignment counted for the amount of points that it was out of, so non carried more weight than another by being worth 40% of the overall grade, for example.  The test was out of 14 so it counted for 14 points.  The unit added up to 111 points overall.

During the 2-week unit I didn’t have a need to call any parent conferences or talk to any parents.  My teacher wanted to deal with the parents of the students in my class.   Students knew that they could come and talk to me before school or at lunch times for extra help.  I tried to answer students’ questions as I explained assignments in class so there wasn’t too much need for feedback.  When I told a student why they got the grade they did I didn’t have to explain too much because I was clear about my expectations from the beginning, so they know what they had done wrong.  Students were more concerned with their overall grade than the grades for individual assignments.  When a student missed an assignment, if it was something that could be done at home I asked them to make up it, but if it was something they could not make up because it was a specific in class activity I gave them the class average for that assignment.

Overall the goals of the assessments that I gave were to help students practice working with and retaining the information they learned, as well as meeting the unit goals, objectives and state standards.  I have discussed how each assignment related back to the unit goals and objectives and because those were made based on the state standards, the assignments must also reflect the standards.