As such, your final assessment project will demonstrate these competencies through a hypothetical plan for incorporating assessment into your classroom planning. Please note that I am aware that some students are already teaching and others are not. Regardless, everyone should approach this task from the perspective of a teacher planning for assessment in her/his classroom. You may select whatever grade level or subject that seems appropriate to your interests and career goals. The following categories of information should be clearly labeled in your final project:
A. Assessment perspectives. You may not want to use each one, but deal with at least three of the following: Traditional, Summative, Performance-Based, Formative, Authentic, Universal.
B. Prepare a hypothetical unit plan for a topic typically taught in your discipline at the grade level you intend to teach. Document (with references) how you intend to develop effective approaches to assessment, evaluation and diagnosis. Use a rich variety of types of assessments (minimum of three) from among this list, though you are not limited to it:
Tests (variety of formats)
Reports, projects
Rubrics
Norm-referenced (standardized test)
Criterion-referenced
And provide an example of the grading plan you will use with your real and/or hypothetical class.
C. You will create a grading policy to accompany your assessment plan. Things to keep in mind: Your instructional goals. Are your assignments and grading policies reflective of the desired learning for you subject and/or grade level? Do the assessments cover content covered in your hypothetical class? Is your plan consistent with standards for your grade and/or subject level?
D. Describe and document (with references) how you use research to assess the teaching/learning environment and inform your practice.
E. Evaluate and select appropriate resources and materials to support student learning. Provide a clear rationale for your selections and discuss how your choices address the needs of students with diverse abilities, learning styles and unique challenges. Clearly specify how the principles of Universal Test Design are reflected in your plans.
F. Clearly document how you will communicate with parents, students and other appropriate audiences about assessment policies, plans and outcomes in your classes. Provide an example.
G. Document how you will use technology to collect, analyze, and interpret assessment data.
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Final Assessment Project
Part A: Hypothetical Unit Plan
The hypothetical unit that I will be utilizing is understanding the meaning of words/phrases in a short passage. The student in 6th grade will be given a hand copy of the short passage, that will also be read aloud from read works, and myself as necessary. The passage will be given on the students reading level, according to their IEP goals. Before the students are assigned a short passage, the students are assessed by their reading goals and their level of comprehension. (For the purpose of this assessment, the students are placed in instructional support groups, where they have tested out of spire (reading comprehension/intervention assessment). After the students have completed their reading aloud, with the assistance of the teacher(s), they will complete comprehension questions, as well as citing textual evidence in a passage, looking at the highlighted words and given worksheets to follow. RL.6.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone. Please look at the table below:
https://www.dpi.nc.gov/media/3991/open
Assessment Type:
Example:
Formative
Given directions from the teacher(s):
Students will be given passages to reference as well as the passage presented on the whiteboard and their chromebook. The passage will be read aloud. Students will be guided through comprehension questions, given at the end of the reading passage. Teacher will highlight, where the answer is/may be located, then look back at the questions. (Example: question #1, What is the name of Johnny brother? Going back to paragraph 1, it states that Johnny’s brother, Max, was playing the game with him. Johnny´s brother’s name is Max.)
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Summative
Given directions from the teacher(s):
At the end of the passage, there will be 5 comprehension questions that we will go over before submitting the questions online for a grade. We will go over the questions in their entirety and if you don’t know what a question means, I will guide you through it. After going over the questions, and giving students the opportunity to ask questions, I will then read the questions to them and then the answer choices and ask them to choose the best answer. The questions will then be submitted for a grade, with 100 being the highest grade possible.
Traditional
Given directions from the teacher(s):
Students will only need a pencil for this assignment. The reading passage will be read aloud to the students. They will be provided with a matching worksheet that will consist of key words from the passage that will be highlighted. The teacher will go over the keywords to pay attention to and other keywords that may relate to each other. Students will be given 5 keywords to match to its relative word in sound. Example: what matches with bed? Given the following words, bed, lead, read, feed? What rhymes with bed? The answer would be red.
Below is an example of a read works passage, which includes the passage, vocabulary and comprehension questions at the end, taken from https://www.readworks.org/article/A-Special-Birthday/f2a3ef7e-005e-4b00-9bc5-5f9ab4285242#!articleTab:content/
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Part B. Assessment Prospective
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According to Michael E. Fisher Jr. (Center for Teaching), stated that student assessments show the effectiveness of teaching through student performance. (Fisher Jr, 2022). Examples of different assessment tools include, summative assessment and formative assessment. How do we measure students who may struggle with math and reading? By performing assessments on them, seeing what they may know and what they may not know. Another idea that comes to mind is letting students assess themselves, by giving them self-assessments, which in this case would be a pre-test. Why are assessments important? Wiggins and McTighe, explained on the Center for Teaching website, that documentation is very, very important, as well seeing the growth/progress of the student, where they´re standing and where they may need a little more push in. (Fisher Jr, 2022).
Fisher, Michael, Jr. (2022) Student Assessment in Teaching and Learning. Center for Teaching. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/student-assessment-in-teaching-and-learning/#:~:text=Student%20assessment%20enables%20instructors%20to,ineffective%20ones%20in%20their%20pedagogy.
C. Grading scale
● Homework: 10%
● Classwork: 30%
● Quizzes: 25%
● Tests & Projects: 35%
D. Described on the National Academies Press website are ways to access students. In formative assessment, the three questions to ask, as stated in the article, are where you´re going? Where are we now? How can you get there? (National Academies Press, 2022). As a new student, especially in the special education world, students come in with goals that they are striving to reach, whether it´s learning how to cite textual evidence or learning how to solve the
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area of square or triangle, that’s a goal to reach and what does it take? It takes effort. If a student comes to me with a goal as listed above, my prime goal is to make sure that the student is receiving every aspect of the curriculum/instruction that is required and above. If it requires reading, the student will read aloud, they will receive highlighters as needed, they will receive verbal cues and prompts. They will receive the ongoing support till they get it 100% or the concept within itself. Another thing as a general education teacher and special education teacher is modifying assignments, working with students to reach their goals. It may be to present an example on the whiteboard or giving examples, or modeling examples. If a student has a math goal, visual cues are a great example, especially modeling a math problem. If a student doesn’t get a problem from the way that the general education teacher is teaching, then the special education teacher can model the problem in a different way, could be by presenting the problem in a simpler way, going step by step.
N.d. (2022). Chapter 3: Assessment in the Classroom. Classroom Assessment and the National Science Education Standards. Retrieved from https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/9847/chapter/5.
Communicating with parents and students
Students will receive daily/weekly updates via email, which can be checked on the powerschool parent portal. If the parent has any questions/concerns with their child, they are always free to reach out via email or the school’s phone, where I am easily reachable. If the student is having a bad day or something that needs to be addressed immediately, I will reach out to the parent via phone call and discuss the matter with the parent. The student will know that I am here, because I will make sure that they see me every day, especially when needed to go over their growth and progress. Students will also receive weekly progress monitoring to see where they stand and what they may need a push in. If the student is absent for some reason, and hasn´t been to school at a certain time, I will reach out to the parent/guardian in that matter.
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If the student is doing amazing in their class, they will receive a reward and the parent will know. Open communication matters to me and the parent will always be kept aware and up to date on their child’s progress.
Documentation for assessing
The utilization of progress monitoring is a great tool that we use for documentation of the studentś progress. Below are examples of reading/math/behavior progress monitoring data sheets that could be used for documentation of student progress/growth.
Retrieved from https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/IEP%20Progress%20Reporting-Distance%20Learning.docx
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