Assessment
I believe that formal and informal assessments are vital to creating responsive instruction that supports all learners. In a single lesson, I look for ways to include multiple forms of assessment so that I can adjust instruction to fit the individual needs of my students.
While student teaching in a K-5 resource room, I began every small group block with a formative assessment such as an entrance ticket or a discussion to probe my students current understanding of the lesson topic. Then, using the informal data I gathered, I scaffolded the lesson accordingly to provide the necessary remediation or extension my students needed within the lesson.
On a larger scale, however, I also used long-term progress monitoring to determine if the interventions I implement are effective in helping my students progress toward their IEP goals. Across an intervention, I utilize multiple forms of assessment such as data probes, student portfolios, and anecdotal records to analyze the progress my students are making. From this foundation, I adjust instruction as necessary to best support my students.
In the future, I plan to continue incorporating more assessment strategies into my teaching strategies to provide more opportunities for my students to demonstrate their learning.
Lesson Plan
This lesson plan is a Leveled Literacy Intervention lesson using a J level text. In keeping in compliance with the Balanced Literacy Diet, this lesson plan includes multiple forms of assessment for analyzing student knowledge of phonics, writing, and reading comprehension. In order to gather data on my student's abilities in these areas of literacy I utilize four different assessments that range from discussions and writing samples to anecdotal records of reading strategy use. By using a variety of assessments, I was able to gather data on several different topics that relate to my IEP goals and use that data to inform my instructional choices for the remainder of the week.
Artifacts
Discrete Trial Assessment: Eden Curriculum
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This image shows discrete trial data for a student building their skip-counting knowledge. Using the Eden curriculum, I taught this student to skip count through modeling, choral reading, and independent reading. Starting with multiples of 10, I taught the student to skip count using a visual aid and heavy teacher prompting. I then tracked the student’s progress in skip counting using the math-aid independently. Once he correctly skipping counted by 10s to 100 independently, I changed his new learning target to skip counting by 5s. As my student grows his skip counting abilities, he has been able to internalize this process and shift his focus from skip counting to multiplication facts.
I have found using the Eden Curriculum’s data template to be particularly helpful to creating responsive instruction because, by tracking data using both a table and graph, I am more efficient in identifying trends in my student’s abilities. For example, by analyzing this graph I was able to see that this student’s ability to skip count independently consistently regressed over the weekend and that his attainment of skip counting using multiples of 5 has taken a longer period of time than his attainment of skip counting by 10s. This prompted me to include skip counting in his warm-ups and his extension activities so that he could further practice this skill outside of discrete trial.
Anecdotal Records
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As I administer assessments, I keep anecdotal records of student testing behaviors. I have found that, by recording these behaviors soon after assessing a student, I have a stronger lens through which I can analyze my assessment data. This anecdotal record shows the spelling and reading anecdotes of a single student. This student showed significant regression when he returned from the winter break.
In an attempt to discover what could be causing this regression, I used anecdotes of his testing behavior to analyze possible trends. The observations that I gathered during January and February confirmed that the student was rushing his work and required prompting to slow down. This prompted me to incorporate more teacher models of fluent reading during this reading group and it allowed me to anticipate this student’s needs by issuing pre-corrective statements to use a smooth pace while reading.
Running Record
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In my classroom, I use running records to gain formative and summative assessment data. Every few weeks, I administer a running record to my students to track their progress toward their reading goals and I adjust instruction based on the trends in my data. By analyzing running records, I have discovered ways to better support my students’ fluency, decoding, and comprehension needs.
I have incorporated specific reading strategies into my instruction to supplement the curriculum of our scripted programs and I have chosen targeted word study lessons to support the decoding needs of students. By using this consistent form of assessment, I have been able to keep the reading instruction for my reading group highly individualized and responsive to my students needs.