Teach-NOW Journey

Posts

Pre-Assessment for Differentiation

January 21, 2018

Pre-Assessments Pre-Assessments for writing are more often than not writing samples, and I follow that trend. It's near impossible to gauge how well a student can write from a multiple choice or fill-in the blank type of test. Pulling your thoughts from your mind and transferring them to paper are complex tasks that need to be judged with authenticity--hence the writing sample. The Prompt and Evaluation Prior to beginning a narrative fiction unit, I would give my sixth grade students a prompt similar to this. I often use a combination of word and picture prompts. I feel that these are more than likely to capture the imagination of the greatest number of students. Once the students have completed the assessment, I review them based on grade level exemplars. I have a few resources such as www.writinga-z.com and www.k12.thoughtfullearning.com that I use. The exemplars look like this: Groupings Using the exemplars, I am able to scan and quickly evaluate whethe

High Stakes Assessment

January 10, 2018

High Stakes Testing Since the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, high stakes testing has been at the forefront of American public education. The accolades for schools that perform well are many and the punishments for schools are even more numerous. I'm in a pretty lucky situation at the school at which I work---our school has scored well on end-of-the-year standardized tests from it's inception. The year the school opened was the last year for the STAR test, and California has now transitioned to the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Our school, The Heights Charter, outperforms the local elementary and middle schools and currently is ranked an 8 out of 10 when compared to schools of comparable size and populations in the state. There isn't a lot of pressure put on staff or students regarding state testing. The culture at our school is pretty much the opposite of the soul crushing, suicide inducing levels of South Korea. But here's the question: are

Multicultural Content and Multiple Perspectives

December 21, 2017

Multiculturalism in the Classroom at Heights Charter I teach in a very culturally homogeneous suburb of San Diego. Our school is close to 77% white (3 times greater than the state average), 12% Hispanic (1/5 the state average), 2.5 % Asian (1/5 the state average), 2% black (1/3 the state average), and 2% American Indian (3 times the state average due to our proximity to three local reservations). The school is nearly 100% Christian. Students at our school don't get to interact with children very different from themselves with any regularity. Because of this, it is important to expose them to multicultural themes as much as possible. I think that a goal of an educator is to get students to see that the world they live in may not be the same world as that someone of a different race, religion, or socioeconomic status. It is important to build empathy and understanding in students that something that is not seen as an obstacle to success by them, might seem insurmountable by

Differentiating for and Anticipating Student Needs

December 10, 2017

Differentiation What is Differentiation? The basic idea of differentiation is that while learning objectives don’t change, instruction can be tailored to meet individual needs. Differentiation can take place in four areas: content, process, product, and learning environment. To differentiate in content, teachers can manipulate what students need to learn and how they access the information. When differentiating by process, teachers can manipulate activities students engage in to obtain mastery. To differentiate by product, teachers can manipulate the projects they ask students to create to show their mastery. Finally, teachers can manipulate the way the classroom looks and feels to differentiate the learning environment. Differentiating for a Student with ADHD and Dyslexia One of my 6th grade students has ADHD and dyslexia. I work closely with our resource teacher and school psychologist to execute his IEP. In fact, I have sat in on two of his annual IEP revi

Articulating Outcomes--Thinking Like an Asssessor

December 01, 2017

So, we've planned objectives, now what do we do? According to backwards mapping, we now need to look at what types of assessments we will use to reveal if learning is actually taking place. Two kinds of assessments we will use are formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments are low-stakes ways to gather data on what students know and if lesson activities are meeting learning objectives. If gaps are discovered in student learning, instruction can be modified to address areas of deficit. Formative assessments can be entrance/exit tickets, quizzes, class discussions, observations, etc. Summative assessments are evaluations given at the end of a chapter or unit of study to see if learning objectives or standards have been met. These are high stakes, graded assignments that hold a large weight in marking student achievement and progress. Summative assessments include California's Common Core aligned Smarter Balanced Assessment, end of chapter tests,

Relection on Unpacking Standards and Backwards Mapping

November 24, 2017

Reflection on Unpacking Standards and Backwards Mapping In this unit, we’ve learned about two interesting concepts—unpacking standards and backwards mapping. Here are brief summaries of both: Unpacking standards helps teachers to translate standards into lessons. To unpack a standard, teachers identify the verbs. This helps teachers to identify what the standards what students to be able to DO to meet the standard. Teachers must also identify the nouns in a standard. This helps them to be able to identify the CONTENT students should be learning. Backwards mapping is a process teachers use to build assessments and teaching activities to help students meet goals or standards. The teacher starts by identifying the skill he or she wants students to master and then planning assessments and activities accordingly. This process ensures that chosen activities and assessments are working toward that identified end goal. The two strategies have their strengths and

Search This Blog