Post-Assessment Tool

My post assessment tool is exactly the same as my pre-assessment tool. Judging from the performance on the pre-test I did not feel that I needed to alter the post-test questions. One thing I did do for the post test was for question #5 on the test, I drew a picture of a "sunshine" and "snowflake" on the board for them to mimic the drawing. This is because during the pre-test I had alot of students state that they did not know how to draw a snowflake. This made it easy for me to distinguish their drawings when scoring the post-test. My criteria and indicators for assessing their work as well as the assessment scale remained the same as listed in pre-assessment as I did not feel any adjustments were necessary.

What the assessment (pre/post) showed regarding student's learning:

What can be noted by the graphing (as seen in visual representation section of the work sample) of the individual learning gains from pre to post test of the students is that every student made some gains, and most of them made tremendous gains in their test score (5 of them reaching 100% ) on the post-test, as will be shown in another chart. All but 1 student made some gain in their score. Student EE, or #4 did not make any gain in her score. This is because she moved from the classroom before the post test was taken. She did successfully participate in and complete many of the lessons so is included in the formative assessment portion, but she was unable to participate in the post test. She did well on the formative assessments and met expectations there, which I can use to conclude that she did take-on the learning. Both the pre and post-tests were given individually with “privacy shields” in place. I read them the questions aloud for both tests. On the pre-test, the average score was 8/25 points or 32%. On the post-test, the class average score increased to 20.5/25 points or 82%. This is a 50% gain in test score from pre to post-test on average which is well within the goal range of 30-60% increase.

Before giving the pre-test I set a goal that all of the students would increase their score somewhere in the range of 30-60%. As represented by the pie chart in “Chart 2” of the visual representation section of the work sample, over half of the students (12 out of 22, 55%) were within this increase range. In addition, 27% of students (6 out of 22) exceeded the range, increasing their post test score by more than 60%. 4 out of 22 students were below the 30% increase in score range. Of those 4, 2 of them could not have increased more than 30% because of their high pre-test score and both scored 100% on the post test. The other 2 were pulled out for half of the science lesson for ELL services. Although not in the goal range, the both still increased their pre to post-test scores. In addition, both of these students met criteria in formative assessments throughout the unit.

Throughout this science unit there were a variety of activities and work that the students were scored on to determine if they understood the concepts, as well as to help them prepare and learn for the post-test. Visually represented in Excel Document “Sheet 2” (in the visual representation section of the work sample), the data is recorded by student and assignment. For each assignment the student was given a “minus”, “check”, or “plus” based on effort for the activity, work turned in, etc. They were then given points as shown in the key on “Sheet 2”. 17 of the students (74%) met expectations on formative assessments based on their points. There were 6 students who did not. 3 out of those 6 were students who were absent more than once or pulled out of the classroom on a daily basis during science time. One thing to note about this type of formative assessment is that it does not only show comprehension (things such as their journals), but also effort and whether they were there to participated in the activity (the air and ice melting activities). Each activity and formative assessment was designed to directly correlate with and prepare the students for the post test as well as help them meet the daily and unit objectives. Based on the data that 74% of the students met expectations in their formative assessments, I can conclude that overall, the class did meet the daily objectives and ultimately were successful in their learning throughout the unit.

If I were to do this over again, I would focus more on the students that had to leave the classroom during part of my lesson. Students GG, HD, JR, and TW were the students with pull out requirements and as seen by the data, they all did increase their post test scores; however, they were the students with the least increase in score. 2 of those 4 still met expectations in formative assessments and the other 2 were just below meeting expectations in formatives. Toward the end of my unit I began to use “expert groups” more and more and wish I had started this sooner. It became apparent in the middle of my unit that there was a group of students who was excelling. I began to put them in charge of catching up the students who were pulled out by showing them their journals and going over charts we had done in class. I feel that this was beneficial for both my pull-out students and my “experts” and if done sooner, those other 2 students may have also met expectations in formative assessments.