Standard 5 Meta-Reflection: Assessment

Standard 5 Assessment: Assess students’ mastery of curriculum and modifies instruction to maximize learning.

The first artifact is a unit on evolution which has been planned using an Understanding by Design (UbD) template. There are multiple types of summative and formative assessments which not only target content knowledge but also high level thinking skills such as compare and contrast and summarization. Every assessment is linked to the state standards and corresponds to the daily learning activities.

Artifact: UbD Evolution Unit

The next artifact is a content based assessment (CBA) I developed for a general science class. It involves creating an advertisement for an element off the periodic table. The attached documents include an overview of the assessment, a rubric and an explanation of why and how this assessment was created. This artifact shows how a content based assessment can be written to include student choice, creativity, collaboration and reflection.

Artifact: Philosphy Statement

Artifact: CBA

Artifact: Rubric

Artifact: Scoring Guide

One School’s Action Plan Process

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the school I teach at is currently in the process of re-evaluating our school-wide action plans due to the accreditation process. To provide some background, Kentridge High School is located in suburban Kent. It has 2400 students and 110 teachers. There is strong community and parent support although from a smaller population as our school becomes more diverse and transient.

Our principal recently conducted a staff meeting where a large amount of data was presented to provide a snapshot of our school. The goal was to look for trends in the data which we could relate to our action plans for the next seven years. Teachers were then asked to develop one or two action plans using the SMART goals criteria. It was not referred to specifically as a SMART goal but the criteria was all there. Teachers were then randomly grouped into fours and picked a goal everyone thought best met the criteria of a SMART goal. A member from each group then went wrote their goal on a large piece of paper and those were collected. Certain committees were already in place to determine SMART goals for areas of the school but a few needed to be created. The principal asked for volunteers and choose about 10 teachers to look at the school’s mission statement. In two weeks, the principal announced the SMART goals and asked for feedback from the teachers in a large group setting. After questions had been answered and feedback received, the goals were accepted by the staff.

As evidenced from a few discussions (see “Annnnnnd ACTION” by Erin Power Kozloff) in the class this week, there are inherent difficulties in a large school such as Kentridge. The most formidable one is to get all the staff members to “buy in” to a goal they did not have a direct hand in creating. Many times, these action plans or goals are created in small sub committees and the end product is only seen. Staff members accept the action plan but feel no ownership. The way Kentridge created the goals by including everyone in the data and idea process, incorporates more people into the process. It simply isn’t wise to have all 110 teachers write an action plan. A smaller group of teachers representing and getting feedback from others is a good way to approach it.

Action plans provide a common, focus way for schools small and large to impact student learning and the learning environment. It is important for everyone to be included in the creation of an action plan but concessions need to be made in the case of a large school or a specific area such as Special Education or English Language Learners. Using the SMART goal steps, these action plans can bring a school together and enable students to learn.

Data and the District

The website 3D2Know offers a quiz entitled “Data-Driven Decision Making” which allows educators “to determine their readiness to use data-driven decision making both accountability and continuous school improvement. Upon taking the test, I confirmed what I had already assumed- the Kent School District does not provide individual teachers with timely data on their students. The level definition I scored at was “Early” which was defined as “Aware of the area. The district has begun actively working toward achieving its goals for this area.”

The data I receive from the district are WASL scores from elementary and middle school testing along with one or two other assessments which I am not familiar with. The data is linked to the individual student in an online database and it isn’t sorted according to my individual classes. If I wanted to get a snapshot of my entire class, it would take a considerable amount of work. The district also grades a required end of course assessment but I don’t see those results until the end of the following year and even then, they aren’t presented in a useful format. The district could do much more to enable teachers to make data-driven decisions in their instruction.

On a more positive note, the district does seem to be compiling or at least sharing more school-wide data about our student populations. We identified certain areas for needed improvement using data collected from the WASL, GPAs and SAT scores. For now, this data is only available school-wide but I am hopeful that it will eventually be offered at the department or individual teacher level.

For now, I am satisfied to collect and analyze data on my own. Using scantron forms makes the process easy but I don’t like to give too many multiple choice tests. While data collection is a long and tiresome process, it greatly improves my ability to see where problems and gaps lie in my instruction and improve it.