Assessing students and beyond!

Assessment is a great tool for teachers, it is beneficial in everyway. Assessment does not just evaluate the knowledge students have gained, but it assesses how the knowledge students already have, the knowledge they are gaining throughout, and importantly how the teacher is doing. It is crucial for the teacher to get an understanding throughout the lesson, if they are teaching in the best way possible. By assessing, the teacher answers the questions:

Do the students understand what I am teaching?

Do I need to make this more interesting because the students are not engaged?

How can I make this better next time?

Do I need to make adjustments within my teaching method?

All of this adds to the pedological knowledge of the teacher. It allows for the teacher to make the best decisions within their lessons, so that the students can gain the most knowledge from it.

During my lessons, my peers and I decided there were a few ways that we were going to assess our students, we started off with a range of diagnostic assessment tools, such as a pre-test, then we asked a range of questions to see the knowledge that they previously had along with the knowledge that they retained from the last class.

Pre-Test Student Work:

As you can see the range within the students work is great. Some students were able to complete the pre-test without any problems whereas others struggled to complete it with the tie given. Some students seemed overwhelmed and did not even seem to give the test a chance, where others new the answers and flew through it. Throughout the diagnostic assessment I asked myself:

     What do my students already know about the topic?
     Do my students understand the concepts relating to this topic?
     Do i need to refresh my students on the topic
     What alternative conceptions do my students have on the subject?



For the formative assessment we asked students to complete a vortex smart board activity. They were asked to categorize words or statments that fall within either "an expedition" or "a tour". The students did not stuggle with this at all infact they flew right through the actvity.

For the summative assessment the students were asked to complete a jeapordy game to see the knowledge that they gained throughout the process. Along with this we had a summative assessment handout where the students were asked to simple reflect and write three things that they gained from the lesson. Here is their work:

Along with this the students were asked to complete a Newspaper article based on the hints and their prior knowledge. This gave us the ability to see how much the students gained from the direct instruction lesson and the knowledge that they previously acquired. This was a fun and exciting activity for the students that they enjoyed and excelled at. Here is there work:

My philosophy for teaching

I believe that Social Studies should be meaningful...

• As a teacher it is my duty to analyze my students knowledge and skills so that I can build meaningful connection. Students deserve the opportunity to truly grasp the knowledge and skills being taught and expand their experience and viewpoints.

I believe students should be given the opportunity to construct their own knowledge within Social Studies…

•  As a teacher I want to provide my students with the opportunity to construct and develop their own understanding and meaning of things that happened in the past and present. I am there to support and guide this understanding not to simply directly teach facts and dates. It will in fact  help the student grow and develop as a learner in an environment that is engaging and educational.

I believe each child should feel safe and comfortable in the classroom...

•  I truly feel that a student must feel safe in the classroom, they are more likely to be open to learning if they are not distracted by other things. If they are at ease and they understand it is ok to try and make a mistake then students will be more apt to gaining knowledge and understanding. Social Studies can be a very overwhelming topic with the amounts of facts and ideas to know, I want students to feel at ease and enjoy the learning experience.

I believe it is my duty to build respect and appreciation of all students…

•  Every child comes from a different background, culture, and ethnicity. All students should feel accepted and appreciated for who they are, therefore I will make sure to build respect and understanding into all my students. By allowing students to bring apart of them into the classroom, students can gain knowledge of other cultures; their history, traditions, and so much more.

I believe students must feel successful...

• Every day I will do my best to ensure every student feels proud or successful in the work that they have done. Some children are great writers, others are great at decoding information, others are great at working with peers, and others work well with hands on things. Finding something the child is good at and giving them praise and feedback can only enhance the quality of work that student brings to the table.

I believe building curiosity in the student will motivate their learning…

• If a student is curious about Social Studies and they want to learn or make a discovery, their learning can only be enhanced. I want my students to be curious about the world we live in, this way they understand that they can make discoveries about our past and how it affects our future.

Collabing on a scavenger hunt!

Today's lesson was fun, engaging, exciting, and interesting! The students really found interest in this lesson, they were motivated to learn. The general theme for this lesson was going on a scavenger hunt, for clues. The students were put into teams and they had to follow a treasure hunt map to discover different clues to show the class to help them guess what explorer or famous person they were speaking about. 

There were do many great things about this lesson, the first was simply getting the students to move around and get them outside. Simply taking a few extra minutes to bring them outside made the lesson much more exciting. The students were given a map to follow, this also made it more exciting because they did not feel as though they were learning. The lesson called for all students to collaborate and work together to discover something. They really needed to use their critical thinking skills to perform the objective. It also called for their peers to use their prior knowledge and critical thinking skills to come up with an answer of who each group was referring to. The students in the group also needed good communication skills to get across to the rest of the class there ideas, thought, facts, and information.

Overall, this lesson went down wonderfully. It is something that I will do each year with my very own class because I saw how well it worked out. I do however wish that the teachers shared the roles of leader. I felt as though I only heard Corey speaking the entire time. I wish that my other peers had joined in on the teaching process. We all need practice putting lessons together and performing them, so this is something that i feel could have went better.

Bibliography.... some more insight on teaching methods

The students were able to successfully meet the objective for this session. It was a direct instruction lesson plan and the students were asked to complete a bibliography on the information that they were provided during the lesson. The fact that the students had to fill out a paper made the process a lot more interesting and fun; the students were actually engaged in the lesson. The strengths of the students were recalling the information that they were given because they were provided the information while they were filling out the form. I feel that they did face some challenges; because they were asked to write the bibliography during the lesson the students had a hard time keeping up. If they heard an answer and went to write it down they missed the information that was given during that time. The students seemed to be able to complete the vortex without any support. They were able to recall the information that was given to them and successfully categorize the information. 

Observing the students today helped me to get a better understanding of other teaching methods and how students react to it. I saw that having the students create something while information was being given to them was tough. They had a hard time catching up while new information was being given to them. I feel as though I would have student either create the bibliography during the lesson, but pause and give them time to catch up. Or I will have the students fill it out right after the information was provided to them. 

Having the students create a bibliography is a great method that I have learned from my peers. It is something that I will use in my own classroom; this activity advances many skills of the students such as learning how to write a bibliography. Simple things like this activity allows for the student to learn an array of things through one lesson. This activity was great for advancing the skills of the students in the class.

This lesson definitely fostered the critical thinking of the students, they were able to generalize the information that they were given to fill out a bibliography. They were able to analyze the information that was provided to them to fill in the writing assignment.