EVALUATE – Assessing Student Learning (connects primarily with Rubric 8 in Assessment)

Purpose: To assess student achievement, diagnose student learning strengths and needs, and inform instruction. Provide evidence of your ability to 1) develop evaluation criteria aligned with your main idea, standards, and learning objectives; 2) analyze student performance on an assessment in relation to student needs and the learning objectives; 3) provide feedback to students; and 4) use the analysis to identify next steps in instruction for the whole class and individual students.

A. Evaluation Criteria (connects primarily with Rubric 8 in Assessment)

1. Communicate your criteria for student performance. How did you determine proficiency levels in student learning?

My criteria for student performance is if they can give me examples of matter, the states of matter, physical properties, and chemical and physical changes. If students are able to list examples of all of these then I will know they are proficient and understanding the unit. If they can list some examples but need some prompting to remember the difference between what matter is and is not, the states of matter, physical properties, and chemical and physical changes then I will know that they kind of understand the material but still need some help.

2. Analyze student performance across the class from one assessment completed during the learning segment. (Provide a copy of the assessment.) Explain how you measured students’ progress toward learning the main idea, the targeted standards, and the learning objectives. Describe class trends.

I used this assessment as a halfway check for this unit. I used this as a halfway check because it reviewed matter, the states of matter, and physical and chemical change and is set up similarly to our post-assessment. This showed me who was making progress towards meeting our standards and who still needs helps. I measured my students progress by basing it off of the learning objective stated at the bottom of the paper, “Differentiate between physical and chemical change.” I also paid attention to if the students were able to describe the properties of matter in the first part of the assignment. All of the students exceled at being able to give examples of matter and the properties of matter. I mostly noticed students struggling with differentiating between physical and chemical changes, so we did a small review of this before every class period during the rest of our unit.

3. Communicate the extent to which the whole class met the standards/objectives. Summarize student performance in narrative and/or graphic form. Discuss what most students appear to understand well, and any misunderstandings, confusions, or needs.

My students did fairly well on their pre- assessment before we started the assessment. They understood the difference between a solid, liquid, and a gas and had an idea of what matter was. Most did not know how to identify physical properties. These were the three main topics we covered during this unit. Overall, the entire class did very well on the post assessment. Of the 19 students in class, 18 were meeting the standard and 1 was approaching. All of the students appeared to understand that the three states of matter were solids, liquids, and gases. Most of the students were able to give examples of each state of matter. A few students were confused on what an example of a gas would be, but would give something that could be a gas that they had not yet learned about. Some students got confused on what giving examples of physical and chemical change. In this section, they would give an example of a chemical change rather than a physical change and vice versa. A few students were confused when it came to pick physical properties and were picking emotions. Overall, all of the students did very well on this unit and were met the standard.

4. Select three focus students, one of whom has identified learning needs, e.g., an English Language Learner, a student with an IEP, or a student identified as gifted and talented. Describe each student’s individual learning strengths and challenges relative to what was measured by the assessment. Provide work samples from each student. Remove names of students, yourself, and the school with correcting fluid, tape, or marker prior to copying/scanning the work samples.

Student A: Student A comes from a lower social economic home. This student has an academic IEP and also receives ELL services. This student has a condition where the left side of his body is partially paralyzed and causes this student to struggle with hearing from his left ear. This child is a very happy student and likes to ask a lot of questions. This student seems to enjoy learning but does not see the value of education. A strength that this child has going into this unit is that they are very willing to learn and ask questions, they also have a lot of prior knowledge on this topic. A weakness is that this child is that they are very low in reading and don’t always understand what the question is asking them.

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Comparing Pre and Post Tests

Pre-Test Post-Test

Student B: Student B also comes from a lower social economic home. This student use to be on a behavioral IEP but has not been using it recently do to maturing and gaining self-control when things are not going their way. This student really enjoys science and has said on multiple occasions that they don’t want to leave science. This child enjoys answering questions but becomes frustrated and silly when it comes to doing work. This child can be very high achieving but does not see the value in school so does not try their best. A strength that this student has going into this unit is that they already have a good understanding of what we are going to be doing. A weakness would be that they do not focus well, and it will be difficult for them to stay on task during classroom activities.

Student C: Student A is a very high achieving student. This child excels in most aspects of school. They also help out in the morning during the special education gym class. They are a very good student and likes to ask questions and be engaged during classes. This child is very hard on themselves when they get something incorrect or don’t understand something. School is very important to this child and they always want to do their best. This child already has a very good understanding of what we will be doing in this unit. A weakness they will have is that they confuse themselves and then are very hard on themselves for not understanding what we are doing.

5. Document evidence of feedback on the work of two of the three focus students.

Student A:

1. Communicate how assessment evidence guided your decision-making as you adjusted your daily lesson plans.

Assessments helped me decide how to adjust my lessons every single day. If a class was really struggling with a topic one day, we would cover the same topic the next day. If a class sort of understood something, but still kind of got confused, we would review a little bit before class and then move on and do that multiple days in a row. The evidence from my assessment also showed me what was working with my students and what was not. In my second science class, many of the students were very low in reading so making them read and answer questions on their own was very difficult for them. To help them better comprehend the assessments, I turned them into a group assessment where I would read the question, and everyone would answer. This helped a lot because students that knew the answer were able to give an answer and students that did not were able to listen so they could answer next time that question was asked. This also helped the students that could not read the questions and understand what they met because they are having it read to them.

2. Communicate what you have learned about assessing student learning and the role of feedback in teacher effectiveness.

I believe that feedback has a great deal of importance in a student’s learning. This will help a student when they are not sure what they are doing and encourage them when they are getting frustrated. I enjoy using verbal feedback. I do this by walking around the room and telling students they are doing a good job. If a student is having a hard time, I will always start with a positive and then try and correct them. For example, “You’re doing a really good job, for this question try

Student C:

6. Explain how your feedback addressed individual student needs and learning objectives. Provide specific evidence of effective, formative feedback descriptively shared with students - specifically success feedback (something the student did correctly) and/or intervention feedback (describing correction or a feature of quality needing work) given to students and describe opportunities for the students to apply the feedback to improve the work or their understanding. (Rubric 9 in Assessment)

Student A: On this assignment, student A got confused on the difference between solids, liquids, and gases. In the comment I wrote at the top of their paper, I started with a positive comment by telling them they did a good job and then reminded them the difference between a solid, liquid and gas and then used examples from the worksheet to show them an example of each.

Student C: Student C did a very good job on this assignment. They did get confused on one of the questions because of the name of the substance they were categorizing. In the comment, I again began with telling them they did a good job, then reminded them not to get confused by the name of substance and to think about its properties.

7. Identify next steps in instruction for the two focus students you identified (in step 5, above). (Rubric 9 in Assessment)

Student A: For student A, they were given modified assignments after this first assignment. These modified assignments usually included me reading the question to them and then they would tell me their answer. This worked for this student because they are low in reading and this way, they have a better chance of understanding the question and asking questions if they do not understand the question. I believe doing assignments this way for student A worked very well. We also did a lot of assignments and activities as a whole which I think helped them because they could see how others answered the question, listen to other students questions that student A may have had, and could ask peers for help if needed. This helped the student achieve at a higher level during this unit.

Student C: For student C, they needed very little help during instruction. They are very independent and ask questions whenever they are confused. I checked in with them every once and awhile to see if they had any questions. They usually did not and if they did, they would raise their hand or come and ask me. At the beginning of class, we continued to review whole group which I believe helped both student C and other students in the class. We also did a lot of partner work which gave this student a chance to ask peers questions when they were not able to ask me for help. This helped the student excel during this unit.

B. Overall Reflective Commentary on Evaluation (View Rubric 9 on Assessment and Rubric 10 in Reflection)

doing this instead…” I think that this type of feedback shows the students that I care about how they are doing and want to help them as much as possible. I believe that giving feedback also helps with student learning because if a teacher never gives feedback then the students will never know if they are succeeding or if they need help during other assignments.