Unit 6.6 Final Reflection

Which kind of assessment was most difficult to create? Why? 

I think creating Written assessments are the most difficult to create for me because they are longer assessments that take more skill to complete usually. This means they take more skill to create because you have to make sure they are worth the time and aren't just a a waste of time. This is especially hard to use in P.E. because a lot of our standards are performance-based. This doesn't mean we can't use them at all, just not as often!

 Which one was most easy?  Why? 

The easiest assessment to create to me was Performance assessments. It helps that in P.E. this is our thing, but also that in my head, making performance assessments just clicks. It is like tying your shoe, it comes second nature! I know that from my learning target, I have to see certain key points to make sure the students have the required knowledge to move on. When testing with performance assessments, you have to observe the performance to see the key parts you are testing on, and I just feel like that is a lot easier!

What was something that surprised you about creating assessments?

Something that surprised me about assessments was that in the attributes to a good test, it said to distinguish words like Not and except. This makes sense in my head but I feel like I have seen this test on almost every test I have taken! Especially in math, I feel like the teachers are trying to trick you with their questions but that should not be the case. The point isn't to trick your students, it is to see how much information they have actually learned. I also thought it was cool that it said to work the word "Please" into your tests so that it is more invitational and less foreboding. 

Unit 5.3

Planning

What part of planning comes easy to me?

For me, the syntax I will use for different lessons is easy to plan for as well as making the assessments that we use to make sure the students are meeting the learning target. For syntax, we have been told to always use posters and visual aids so that students always have something to refer to. These work great in P.E. classes because there are usually a list of steps you need to follow when completing a certain move so if a student forgets a certain step in a process, they can look back at the poster for reference. 

I find assessments fairly easy as well because we really just have to base them off of the learning targets and make sure they show competence of whatever the target is! I also like to add student voice at the end of every lesson I teach so I can see how the students thought the lesson went, what I can do better, and I can see what they learned about themselves from the lesson.

What part is not as intuitive?

The part of planning that is more difficult for me is figuring out my differentiated instruction and Culturally Responsive Practices. I fell like the biggest reason for this is I have not had a ton of experience in the actual classroom and don't have real students to base my lessons off of. We have learned a lot about these two parts so its not that I don't know what I should do when I have specific children in my classes but more so that I am not great at using my imagination to base my lessons off of students that I don't have. 

Assessments

Assessments

1. Selected response and short answer 

Pros

-Great for assessing mastery of discrete elements of knowledge, such as important history facts, spelling words, and foreign language vocabulary.

-Can administer large numbers of questions per unit of testing time

-Can cover a lot of material relatively quickly.

-Easy to obtain a good sample of student knowledge 

Cons

-Limits to this format when assessing reasoning

-Cannot be used to assess the quality of products

2. Extended written response

Pros

-Assessing reasoning targets

-Assesses blocks of knowledge rather than pieces of information detached from one another. 

-Can get at a deeper level of knowledge than selected response assessments

Cons 

-Not as efficient as selected response assessments because responding to each of them takes long.

-The question has to be a novel

3. Performance assessment

Pros

-Can assess the attributes of the product itself

-Can observe and evaluate skills as they are being performed

Cons 

-Not a good choice for assessing knowledge targets

-Inefficient to assess all content knowledge 

-Can be thought of as impractical 

4. Personal communication

Pros

-Real-time sampling of students understanding during instruction

-Effective for students with special needs, ELL, or younger students, to gather accurate information.

-Strong match to reasoning targets

Cons

-Inefficient if a lot of knowledge is to be assessed

-The amount of time it takes and the record-keeping challenges it poses when assessing reasoning proficiency

-No precise reasoning behind why a program something or someone doesn't perform successfully

What role will assessment play in my lesson plan?

Assessment will play a large role in my lesson plans. I plan on using personal communication and performance assessments the most in my lesson plan because I feel like they fit the best in a P.E. classroom. I plan on using performance assessment to assess the skills and reasoning proficiency of my students when they are participating in my activities and lessons. I plan on using personal communication to connect with my students on a more personal level and also to help me become the best teacher I can be. My exit slips could having each students answer a question I ask them so that they can go or I can use it throughout the whole class period to ask specific questions. These will help me understand the thought process of my students because they can explain to me why they answered the way they did.

Reference: Stiggins, Rihard J. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing It Right -- Using It Well. Assessment Training Institute, 2005.

Deriving a Learning Target

For me, the most challenging part of deriving a learning target was figuring out the right verb to use. I could not think of better ones than demonstrate or analyze to save the life of me. This is some thing that lecture really helped out with! If you ever need to find a good verb, here are a few for different scenarios!

Knowledge Targets:

• Explain
• Describe
• Identify
• List
• Define
• Match

Reasoning Targets:

• Interpret
• Determine
• Compare
• Contrast
• Assess
• Prove

Product Targets:

• Design
• Create
• Develop
• Write

Performance Skill Targets:

• Perform
• Measure
• Demonstrate

Learning targets and assessments go hand and hand. You assess how well your students completed each learning target. For example, if the learning target is recognize acute, obtuse, and right angles, then the assessment could have three different pictures of triangles and have the student's answer which is which.

Content Learning Standards

Content Learning Standards

As a parent, standards are super useful because I will know almost exactly what my students will be learning before it happens. For Sexual Health it would also be good to know what they are being taught in class so that maybe I could give them a little intro about it so that they are not caught off guard in class. Lastly, it shows me that the teachers have actual plans for my children and aren’t just picking and choosing random units to teach about! If I can’t answer a question my child has, that is okay because everyone uses the standards so I can ask any of my friends for help. Even if are children are in different classes, the standards the students must get to are the same.

As a teacher, content learning standards make me more confident about teaching because it gives me a good baseline of what to do and makes lesson planning so much easier! If I ever have any questions about what my students have learned or need to learn, I can just look over at the standards and get my answer! I can also use standards as a way of giving the students a main goal to strive for and how if we all work together and are focused, we will achieve that goal.

Deconstructing standards is when the teacher determines individual learning targets from the standard. This is basically making short-term goals to reach your long-term goal (standard). I am getting a higher confidence in this the more I practice so by the time I start teaching I will be good. We were taught a lot about making learning targets in the P.E. department, so I am not worried about it, if anything I am more excited!

My Mindset

            I know that I want to be successful and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. This does make me very stressed out at times though which causes me to lose focus and makes my mind wander more than usual. I also am nervous to fail at times which sometimes makes it hard for me to attempt new things. I also know I am a very hands on learner and trying to learn things exclusively from reading can be very difficult for me.

            One thing that has impacted my life as a learner is the teachers that I had growing up. For the most part, they have always taught me to strive for greatness and to never really settle. At times I did feel a little scared to fail because I knew if I was to fail, my parents would not be happy. This has definitely been a setback for me.

            The score category I received on the mindset quiz was growth mindset with some fixed areas. I can see this being true because I usually can be confident in my abilities to improve but at times am not comfortable to get out of my comfort zone and try new things because I do not want to fail.

            My growth mindset impacts my experience as a learner by helping me learn from criticism, persist in the face of setbacks and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others where my fixed area, for right now, is having a tough time embracing challenges because I still am afraid to fail at times. 

This is a quote I saw the other day that I am trying to stick with and use when I have an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and try something new!

            One step I am trying to take to grow my mindset and my experience as a learner is, I started to read books in my down time that are intended to help increase my mental strength and confidence. I have never been a big reader, but I know that it is very good to read so I am to get over that hump of reading being a hassle to me so that soon it will become a habit or even a hobby of mine. This will help me in my goal to becoming a lifelong learner which is the goal I would like to see in my students one day.