ASSESSMENT
An assessment tool by itself is not capable of making a judgment about student’s knowledge. A balanced assessment would have 3 types of assessment. This lesson plan combines to a degree the three assessment techniques: traditional, portfolio, and performance. A portfolio focuses on process, product and growth whereas performance focuses on standards, application and transfer. Students will be asked to set goals for themselves each day and will a make a purposeful, integrated collection of work on the group of people they will be representing. They will then have traditional assessments which focus on knowledge, curriculum, and skills, which include their end of unit test on the fifth day after presentations. Finally, this lesson combines performance assessments as well as students will collaborate together to work on tasks under specific criteria from a rubric, all examining student work (Tomlinson, 2005).
Exit Ticket
The exit ticket done at the beginning of a lesson is a formative, informal assessment used to both pre-assess student understanding of key concepts as well as make sure that students understand the overarching conceptual question of “How do laws in government affect our lives”? This is a formative assessment because it occurs while learning is taking place, and allows for immediate interventions (Tomlinson, 2005). The teacher will look at student responses, and immediately have a small group instruction with students who had more than two of the five responses incorrect on the ticket. This in turn would be differentiation of content by readiness as the teacher addresses readiness through small group sessions with teacher support, modeling, and coaching (Tomlinson, 1999).
Graphic Organizers (2)
The graphic organizer is yet another formative, informal assessment that will check my students’ understanding of not only the three amendments, but also the people they will be representing. This is because is causes students to construct answers rather than just identify them as they would in a multiple choice question, allowing the teacher to assess knowledge at a higher level of Bloom’s taxonomy. For those students who excel at learning with graphic organizers, this gives them a chance to display their knowledge in a meaningful way that they understand (Burke 2009).
Group Proposal
The group proposal is also a graphic organizer that allows students to stay on task, however, it also makes sure that students are understanding the objectives and the overarching conceptual question (they are in red on the handout) so that students make sure that they understand the importance of doing the presentation.
Rubric
The rubric given to students is essential in many different ways. It is a informative, summative assessment that is given before the presentation. Primarily, it sets clear expectations so students know exactly what the teacher is looking for when grading their presentations. They are useful because they take subjectivity out of the grading process and scaffold students to become not only responsible, but accountable for their own work. This is an assessment tool that is beneficial to both students and teachers because it improves student performance, while forcing the teacher to clarify their criteria in specific terms (Burke, 2009). In addition, the rubric allows the teacher to be better prepared. In order to have a successful educating experience, the teacher needs to know where they want to end up before they start out, having solid curriculum and instruction (Tomlinson, 2005). Finally, students will then be self assessing themselves, which is what we want learners to do. The rubric is a way that teachers will be explicit with what the objective is and making sure that all students understand the intended learning objective throughout the lesson. Students will then need to know where they are now, and how they need to reach the intended objective. Therefore, the examples the teacher shows of past presentations will provide examples of what high quality work looks like, and what students need to do to close the gap (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002).
Informal Checks for Understanding
The teacher will be informally assessing students through informal, formative checks such as hand signals. Students will use five fingers to represent a deep understanding and comprehension, one finger representing no comprehension, and two to four fingers to show a balance of both (Fisher & Fray). The teacher will also use oral language to check for understanding, noticing nonverbal cues that students give, since communication also involves a student’s facial expression, eye movement and such. Because only two students in the class have English as their home language, it is important for the teacher to continuously scan the class to gauge readiness as well as make sure that everyone is engaged in the learning experience.
All of the handouts are formative assessments that will guide my instruction. “Marzano (2006) cites the research by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998 synthesizing more than 250 studies conclusively showing that formative assessment does improve learning; moreover, the gains are among the largest ever reported for educational interventions” (Burke, 2009, p.2). Therefore, it has been proven that formative assessments are indeed essential in the classroom. This lesson follows the assessment for learning model (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002) as the assessment tools are used as instructional tools for promoting learning rather than the sole purpose of evaluation and assigning grades. The teacher is continuously revising instruction as well as reflecting on the effectiveness of their own teaching depending on student comprehension. Finally, the presentation itself allows the student to provide applications from the real world, prompting students to activate prior knowledge of topics using graphic organizers and the group proposal to connect new knowledge to known. The project is an authentic assessment that allows students to demonstrate their learning as well as be provided with clear feedback (Fisher & Frey).
Choice Board
The Choice Board is the summative assessment, and is the final project. Students will have the opportunity to integrate other content areas into their study to not only display their understanding but be able to teach it to their peers. The rubric shows exactly what should be included as well as what is required of the final presentation so that students are aware of what is expected from them. Students will be required to choose one choice from each row in their final presentation so that all multiple intelligences are addressed.
Exit Ticket
The exit ticket done at the beginning of a lesson is a formative, informal assessment used to both pre-assess student understanding of key concepts as well as make sure that students understand the overarching conceptual question of “How do laws in government affect our lives”? This is a formative assessment because it occurs while learning is taking place, and allows for immediate interventions (Tomlinson, 2005). The teacher will look at student responses, and immediately have a small group instruction with students who had more than two of the five responses incorrect on the ticket. This in turn would be differentiation of content by readiness as the teacher addresses readiness through small group sessions with teacher support, modeling, and coaching (Tomlinson, 1999).
Graphic Organizers (2)
The graphic organizer is yet another formative, informal assessment that will check my students’ understanding of not only the three amendments, but also the people they will be representing. This is because is causes students to construct answers rather than just identify them as they would in a multiple choice question, allowing the teacher to assess knowledge at a higher level of Bloom’s taxonomy. For those students who excel at learning with graphic organizers, this gives them a chance to display their knowledge in a meaningful way that they understand (Burke 2009).
Group Proposal
The group proposal is also a graphic organizer that allows students to stay on task, however, it also makes sure that students are understanding the objectives and the overarching conceptual question (they are in red on the handout) so that students make sure that they understand the importance of doing the presentation.
Rubric
The rubric given to students is essential in many different ways. It is a informative, summative assessment that is given before the presentation. Primarily, it sets clear expectations so students know exactly what the teacher is looking for when grading their presentations. They are useful because they take subjectivity out of the grading process and scaffold students to become not only responsible, but accountable for their own work. This is an assessment tool that is beneficial to both students and teachers because it improves student performance, while forcing the teacher to clarify their criteria in specific terms (Burke, 2009). In addition, the rubric allows the teacher to be better prepared. In order to have a successful educating experience, the teacher needs to know where they want to end up before they start out, having solid curriculum and instruction (Tomlinson, 2005). Finally, students will then be self assessing themselves, which is what we want learners to do. The rubric is a way that teachers will be explicit with what the objective is and making sure that all students understand the intended learning objective throughout the lesson. Students will then need to know where they are now, and how they need to reach the intended objective. Therefore, the examples the teacher shows of past presentations will provide examples of what high quality work looks like, and what students need to do to close the gap (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002).
Informal Checks for Understanding
The teacher will be informally assessing students through informal, formative checks such as hand signals. Students will use five fingers to represent a deep understanding and comprehension, one finger representing no comprehension, and two to four fingers to show a balance of both (Fisher & Fray). The teacher will also use oral language to check for understanding, noticing nonverbal cues that students give, since communication also involves a student’s facial expression, eye movement and such. Because only two students in the class have English as their home language, it is important for the teacher to continuously scan the class to gauge readiness as well as make sure that everyone is engaged in the learning experience.
All of the handouts are formative assessments that will guide my instruction. “Marzano (2006) cites the research by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998 synthesizing more than 250 studies conclusively showing that formative assessment does improve learning; moreover, the gains are among the largest ever reported for educational interventions” (Burke, 2009, p.2). Therefore, it has been proven that formative assessments are indeed essential in the classroom. This lesson follows the assessment for learning model (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002) as the assessment tools are used as instructional tools for promoting learning rather than the sole purpose of evaluation and assigning grades. The teacher is continuously revising instruction as well as reflecting on the effectiveness of their own teaching depending on student comprehension. Finally, the presentation itself allows the student to provide applications from the real world, prompting students to activate prior knowledge of topics using graphic organizers and the group proposal to connect new knowledge to known. The project is an authentic assessment that allows students to demonstrate their learning as well as be provided with clear feedback (Fisher & Frey).
Choice Board
The Choice Board is the summative assessment, and is the final project. Students will have the opportunity to integrate other content areas into their study to not only display their understanding but be able to teach it to their peers. The rubric shows exactly what should be included as well as what is required of the final presentation so that students are aware of what is expected from them. Students will be required to choose one choice from each row in their final presentation so that all multiple intelligences are addressed.