Standard Seven | Assessment
The competent teacher understands and uses appropriate formative and summative assessments for determining student needs, monitoring student progress, measuring student growth, and evaluating student outcomes. The teacher makes decisions driven by data about curricular and instructional effectiveness and adjusts practices to meet the needs of each student.
Artifacts
Spring 2012 | Romeo & Juliet End-of-Unit Assessment & Rubric
Knowledge Indicator 7B) Understands that assessment is a means of evaluating how students learn and what they know and are able to do in order to meet the Illinois Learning Standards
Knowlege Indicator 7E) Understands how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments for diagnosis and evaluation of learning and instruction
Knowledge Indicator 7B) Understands that assessment is a means of evaluating how students learn and what they know and are able to do in order to meet the Illinois Learning Standards
Knowlege Indicator 7E) Understands how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments for diagnosis and evaluation of learning and instruction
rjtestdraftt.docx | |
File Size: | 25 kb |
File Type: | docx |
rjrubricfinalassessment.doc | |
File Size: | 43 kb |
File Type: | doc |
Spring 2012 | Student-Led Classes Reflection Activities
Performance Indicator 7L) Involves students in self-assessment activities to help them become aware of their strengths and needs and encourages them to establish goals for learning
Performance Indicator 7L) Involves students in self-assessment activities to help them become aware of their strengths and needs and encourages them to establish goals for learning
4-16studentledclasseswrapupbellringer.pptx | |
File Size: | 224 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
4-16reflectionquotes.docx | |
File Size: | 141 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Reflections
Spring 2012 | Romeo & Juliet End-of-Unit Assessment & Rubric
This assessment, the final exam for our study of Romeo & Juliet, was created collaboratively in our Professional Learning Community to assess students on a variety of levels. We wanted to understand our students’ achievement on several different levels: one, of their ability to recall and analyze the play itself; two, their ability to understand Shakespeare’s language; finally, their ability to write about overarching essential ideas/themes we had been discussing throughout our study of the play. This exam effectively did that, through four parts: character matching/short-answer explanation, quote identification and explication; tone writing (reading a Shakespearean sonnet students hadn’t seen before, pretending Romeo was the speaker, and making inferences about his tone from it), and an essay about how either Romeo or Juliet conforms to gender stereotypes. In keeping with the course’s use of Standards-Based Grading, we were assessing three specific learning standards (see rubric). I looked at multiple aspects of students’ work on the exam to determine their score on the 1-4 SBG grading scale. Overall, this assessment provided an abundance of sound information (thanks to the challenging design of the test itself as well as the specificity demanded by SBG) on student ability and learning from our study of Romeo & Juliet.
In keeping with SBG, students are allowed to make corrections on a summative assessment like this one, and a number of students took that opportunity. This provided a great opportunity to re-teach many students and also tailor future instruction to student needs. For example, many students needed to go deeper in their analysis during their three quotation explanations to truly meet or exceed expectations for the standard we were assessing. This gave me more knowledge about students’ writing and analysis abilities, which I used to create several future writing assessments. The final essay about conforming to gender stereotypes was also helpful in assessing students’ writing abilities, specifically revealing the fact that many students were struggling in choosing and explicating evidence from the play that was directly relevant to their theses. In response, I did some in-class follow-up work in the form of mini-lessons and other summative writing assessments.
Spring 2012 | Student-Led Classes Reflection Activities
These two reflection activities were used to wrap up a major project involving groups of students teaching the last four vignettes of The Joy Luck Club to the class. Each group was required to deliver instruction on their vignette in the form of an activity and a discussion. Within their groups, students had to collaborate to read their vignette, create a lesson plan, deliver their instruction on their day effectively, be engaged audience members on the days they weren’t presenting, and finally, write a one-page reflection on how they felt the teaching experience went. These activities – the PowerPoint opening questions and the Reflection Quotes in-class writing assignment – provided students with more opportunity to reflect on and process their experiences, as well as connecting their own thoughts with others’.
The PowerPoint opening questions sparked discussion and reflection about how each student perceived their teaching/learning (as an audience member) experience to have been. After that whole-class discussion, each student received the packet above of quotes I chose from students’ written reflections on their lessons. I pulled one quote from each student’s reflection that I had received at that time (all students remained anonymous, of course!). I tried to choose the most interesting/provocative statement each reflection contained. Students read each other’s comments and responded to them in a paragraph. This provided more extended time for students to really process their experiences – as well as requiring more sophisticated thinking, as students now had to compare another students’ opinion to their own. The responses I received from these activities were phenomenal. Students had many insightful observations about this teaching assignment, not just in regards to teaching (and how difficult it can be!), but also talking about pitfalls of group work, for example. These reflective opportunities really solidified a take-away of learning for students, making them aware of their own strengths and areas needing improvement, especially in terms of group work assignments.
This assessment, the final exam for our study of Romeo & Juliet, was created collaboratively in our Professional Learning Community to assess students on a variety of levels. We wanted to understand our students’ achievement on several different levels: one, of their ability to recall and analyze the play itself; two, their ability to understand Shakespeare’s language; finally, their ability to write about overarching essential ideas/themes we had been discussing throughout our study of the play. This exam effectively did that, through four parts: character matching/short-answer explanation, quote identification and explication; tone writing (reading a Shakespearean sonnet students hadn’t seen before, pretending Romeo was the speaker, and making inferences about his tone from it), and an essay about how either Romeo or Juliet conforms to gender stereotypes. In keeping with the course’s use of Standards-Based Grading, we were assessing three specific learning standards (see rubric). I looked at multiple aspects of students’ work on the exam to determine their score on the 1-4 SBG grading scale. Overall, this assessment provided an abundance of sound information (thanks to the challenging design of the test itself as well as the specificity demanded by SBG) on student ability and learning from our study of Romeo & Juliet.
In keeping with SBG, students are allowed to make corrections on a summative assessment like this one, and a number of students took that opportunity. This provided a great opportunity to re-teach many students and also tailor future instruction to student needs. For example, many students needed to go deeper in their analysis during their three quotation explanations to truly meet or exceed expectations for the standard we were assessing. This gave me more knowledge about students’ writing and analysis abilities, which I used to create several future writing assessments. The final essay about conforming to gender stereotypes was also helpful in assessing students’ writing abilities, specifically revealing the fact that many students were struggling in choosing and explicating evidence from the play that was directly relevant to their theses. In response, I did some in-class follow-up work in the form of mini-lessons and other summative writing assessments.
Spring 2012 | Student-Led Classes Reflection Activities
These two reflection activities were used to wrap up a major project involving groups of students teaching the last four vignettes of The Joy Luck Club to the class. Each group was required to deliver instruction on their vignette in the form of an activity and a discussion. Within their groups, students had to collaborate to read their vignette, create a lesson plan, deliver their instruction on their day effectively, be engaged audience members on the days they weren’t presenting, and finally, write a one-page reflection on how they felt the teaching experience went. These activities – the PowerPoint opening questions and the Reflection Quotes in-class writing assignment – provided students with more opportunity to reflect on and process their experiences, as well as connecting their own thoughts with others’.
The PowerPoint opening questions sparked discussion and reflection about how each student perceived their teaching/learning (as an audience member) experience to have been. After that whole-class discussion, each student received the packet above of quotes I chose from students’ written reflections on their lessons. I pulled one quote from each student’s reflection that I had received at that time (all students remained anonymous, of course!). I tried to choose the most interesting/provocative statement each reflection contained. Students read each other’s comments and responded to them in a paragraph. This provided more extended time for students to really process their experiences – as well as requiring more sophisticated thinking, as students now had to compare another students’ opinion to their own. The responses I received from these activities were phenomenal. Students had many insightful observations about this teaching assignment, not just in regards to teaching (and how difficult it can be!), but also talking about pitfalls of group work, for example. These reflective opportunities really solidified a take-away of learning for students, making them aware of their own strengths and areas needing improvement, especially in terms of group work assignments.