Student Academic Progress Assignment Ashlie Carr Setting: I have the opportunity to be student teaching in a fourth grade classroom

at John Wayland Elementary School. This particular school has chosen to set up block scheduling, so my responsibility is to only teach Science. Since I teach over 100 students each day, I will only be using the information I collected from one block (block 3) for this assignment. Although I will be assessing and evaluating every block, my data will be reflective of the 21 students who have Science from 10:20-11:15. In block 3, there are 13 girls and 8 boys. All the students are Caucasian except for one African American. The academic achievement in the class is fairly diverse. There are at least 5 students in this block who I would consider higher achievers. Their test scores and comprehension of material is consistently higher than average. There are also about 2 or 3 students who are academically lower achievers. I would consider the rest of the students to be average. One student in this block has a condition where he has to touch everything. For example, when there is glue around, he is constantly touching the glue on his hands and peeling it off. This student has a hard time focusing during lessons. In addition to that, there are two other students who have a hard time focusing and staying quiet during class. There are no students in this block who have an IEP, but throughout this unit I have noticed one student who has consistently has outlying low scores on assessments and assignments. It may be possible this student needs accommodations or could be considered for a response to intervention. Content/Subject/Field Area: The unit I will be planning and teaching for this assignment is on electricity. The SOL I will be addressing is Science SOL 4.3:
The student will investigate and understand the characteristics of electricity. Key concepts include
c) static electricity; d) the ability of electrical energy to be transformed into light and motion, and to produce heat; f) historical contributions in understanding electricity.

Pre-Assessment: My pre-assessment data was extremely eye opening. The information I collected shows that the students knowledge on this topic varies tremendously throughout the class. I had one student who almost answered all of the questions correctly (student one), but I also had one student who answered only one question correctly (student ten). Between those two extreme scores, there is a range of scores. Something that I found interesting is that most students answered questions 12, 13 and 14 correctly. I was assuming those questions would be a struggle for the students considering they are open ended and completely recall, but my data shows that 80% of the students who took the pre-test answered number 12 correctly. (Question 12 is asking the students to identify the man in the given picture as Ben Franklin.) Although all of the

students who identified Ben Franklin did not answer question 13 and 14 correctly, 50% of the students could describe why Ben Franklin is important and 65% could explain his experiment. These three questions were the most commonly answered correctly. This will help in my lesson planning to make sure I spend less time on the topic of Ben Franklin and more time on the parts of the atom and static electricity based on the pre-assessments. I was also surprised at the number of students that answered questions 1-7 correctly. One reason I believe so many of them got answers correct was because I had so many students telling me they had no idea of the answers that I announced to every block that if they didnt know the answer to use the test taking strategy of using the test to take the test. I encouraged them to use words on the test to answer the questions if they were clueless. Maybe this was too much information because I think that could have been the reason more students answered those correctly than I had anticipated. Overall, the pre-test scores were extremely low though and it is obvious that the open ended questions posed a much more vigorous challenge than a typical multiple choice test. Pre-Assessment Data * Indicates the student answered the question correctly. Question # 6 7 8 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1 Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 Student 5 Student 6 Student 7 Student 8 Student 9 Student 10 Student 11 Student 12 Student 13 Student 14 Student 15 Student 16 Student 17 Student 18 Student 19 Student 20 Student 21

2 *

3 * * *

4 * *

5 * * * *

9 * *

10 * *

11 * *

12 * *

13 *

14 * *

Total Score (%)

* * * * * * * * * * * *

* * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * * * *

86% 50% 50% 29% 36% 21% 36% 71% 64% 7% 29% 36% 36% 43% 64% 29% 21% 14% 43% 43 %
Not Present

Goal Statement: During my electricity unit starting on February 20th and ending on February 28th, 80% of my students will get a score of 70% (C letter grade) or above on the electricity post assessment by being engaged in quality lessons that present the information on the topics represented on the pre/post-test. Means for Attaining Goal: Like I mentioned before, I realized from the data that I need to focus most of my time on the topic of static electricity and atoms. Most of the students surprised me be identifying Ben Franklin and stating what he did and why it is important. I noticed that most students have obviously never been introduced to the three parts of an atom and their charges. Although many students answered questions on this topic correctly, it is obvious that in most cases, it was just a lucky guess. For example, many of the students were clever enough to use their answers from question 1 to answer question 2. Many times I would see a student label the two parts of an atom in the nucleus as an electron and a proton. This is not correct, but then later in the test they answered that the nucleus is made up of electrons and protons. This proves to me that they did their best guess and continued using the information they guessed on to answer other questions. Also, as I was administering the test, I had countless numbers of students raise their hands and tell me they had no idea what to answer in the first nine questions. I will make sure to emphasize the topic of atoms and static electricity during my lessons and make sure to use as many examples and teaching strategies as possible seeing that they do not know this information and they will probably struggle to learn it. I need to make sure I use as many instructional strategies as possible in my lesson planning on the topics of atoms and static electricity so the students can learn the material well and have a deep understanding. Obviously, this is a hard topic for this grade level, so I will have to be creative in my planning to ensure all students learning styles are being catered to, and create lessons that are interesting and engaging to capture their attention. Results: My goal was achieved after analyzing the post test scores. 85% of my students made a grade of 70% or above on the post test. Only 3 students out of the 20 who completed the pre and post assessment scored lower than a 70%, but those 3 students still dramatically increased their score from the pre-assessment.

Post-Assessment Data * Indicates the student answered the question correctly on post-assessment. Question # 6 7 8 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1 Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 Student 5 Student 6 Student 7 Student 8 Student 9 Student 10 Student 11 Student 12 Student 13 Student 14 Student 15 Student 16 Student 17 Student 18 Student 19 Student 20 Student 21 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2 * * * * *

3 * * * * * * * *

4 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

9 * * * * * * * *

10 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

11 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

12 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

13 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

14 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Total Score (%)

* * * * * * * * * * *

* *

* * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * * *

100% 93% 100% 100% 93% 79% 64% 100% 93% 43% 71% 86% 100% 93% 93% 93% 86% 86% 79% 79%
Not Present

(Most frequently missed question: #7 Second most frequently missed question: #4)

Student Improvement
100 90 Assessment Score (%) 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Student Pre-test Post-Test

Post-Assessment Analysis: This assignment was a true test of my teaching ability. My students took the pre-test and got terrible scores before the lessons. Then, I taught three lessons. These three lessons were not taught three consecutive days in a row. In fact, my unit was split up because of practice SOLs and scheduling. The day of the post-test, the students were not aware they would be doing the assessment until I handed them out. I purposefully did not tell them or allow them to study at home for results on my teaching alone. After grading the post-test, I could not have been more pleased with their improvement. Every single student improved their scores. One student even improved from their pre-test score by 69% (student 4)! Although I was incredibly happy about their achievement, I notice some commonly missed questions. #7 on the assessment was the most commonly missed question. This was the question about an atoms typical charge. The answer is that atoms normally have a neutral charge, but the answers were inconsistent to know why they did not choose the correct answer. Some students put positive, some put negative, et. I know that we went over that fact numerous times, but I feel that is a hard thing to remember. The atom has positive and negative charges in it, so the students dont always understand that the positive and negative balance out to create no charge. If I were to teach this over again, I would do a demonstration about how positive and negative even out during the atom day (lesson 1). I would probably do this during the headband activity and put a proton and electron side by side and then say that a proton + an electron= no charge. That is one fact I need to be more repetitive about during my lessons if I teach this again. The second most missed question was #4. I drilled the students about the neutron during my lessons, but it still didnt stick. This is also another fact that is hard for students because they are taughtproton/positive/plus during the lessons, so they think the neutron is negative. We went over this time and time again in class where I said the

neutron is NOT negative. The neutron is neutral and has no charge. Then, I taught them two tricks to remember electrons are negative. Not only does three negative signs make an E for electron, but when you put your fists together like two people are butting heads they can remember that electrons have negative personalities so they butt heads which makes a negative arm symbol (this is all from lesson one). Other than that, there are a few things I may have changed in my lessons. For example, I would make sure to be using more manipulatives and examples when Im telling them the content. My game show day went extremely well and they were so engaged. This proves to me that using those types of strategies are very effective and I need to continue that in my future lesson planning.