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Self-Study of Instruction and

Student Learning
Brent Seifferlein

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CLASSROOM CONTEXT
I did my student teaching at the Nuernberger Education Center.
Nuernberger is a middle school success school. Compared to most middle
schools in Lincoln Public School system the population is quite small,
however, the school is quite diverse racially, culturally and
socioeconomically. The total student body for sixth, seventh and eighth
grade is currently 66 students. However, based on the needs of the
students in the district, this number often fluctuates. Each student at the
school is there because they have been verified with Emotional
Disturbance. The students are brought to Nuernberger because it has
been determined that they are unable to succeed in a regular classroom
environment. The decisions made on these students is that Nuernberger is
the least restrictive environment, where these students can thrive.
As a success school, there are a strict set of rules and policies that the
students must adhere to. The goal is to create a regular education
classroom environment while maintaining a highly structured setting for the
students to thrive in. Norms (the schools rules) have been created and are
enforced for every area of the school including the classroom, hallway,
bathroom, gym, etc. If these rules are not followed exactly as they are
described, the students are subject to disciplinary action up to and
including a manual hold. These stringent rules and staff procedures are
put in place to ensure the safety of the students and staff of the school.
The requirement for teachers to enforce these strict policies while dealing
with a number of behavior issues has a severe effect on the learning of the
classroom. The setting is also not ideal for the use of homework as a grade
or assessment for learning. The students attending the school typically
have too many hurdles for the homework to be completed or returned.
The classroom I chose to do my case study on was my first period sixth
grade social studies. There are six students in my classroom during this
period. 4 students are white, 1 is Hispanic and 1 is Two or more. All six
students have been verified with Emotional Disturbance, two have reading
comprehension and fluency difficulties, two have writing difficulties.
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The unit I created for my 6th grade social studies is Unit 2 of the social
studies curriculum. The main topic for this section is the foundations of
human history and conception of humanity and before. In order to better
understand this concept, we also delved into the topics of what it means to
be human (physically and culturally), early human life and what early world
history tells us. When discussing the word history, our minds typically
think of human existence in the modern era. In the unit, I wanted to create
a mindset within my students that allowed for them to see that a long time
depends on the perspective one is taking when discussing this topic.

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INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING
It can be difficult for fully grown adults to comprehend these abstract
thoughts. I knew it would be difficult for my students to think outside the
box and grasp some of these concepts. My goal was to introduce these
ideas to my students in such a way that they would not become
overwhelmed and ultimately give up.
This was an early lesson in the year. So, in order for the unit to be
effective, I tried to plan it in such a way that it related to an idea that
students already had a firm understanding. I then wanted to expand on
those established thoughts and challenge the students to view things from
a perspective they had not experienced before.
I broke the unit into two main parts. The first section focused on the idea of
introducing history and some basic ideas and concepts. This i introduced
the idea of scale in a history context and learning how to view information
with different mindsets and perspectives. The second section expanded on
this idea to include humans within this newfound way of scale and multiple
perspective thinking.

ACTIVITY

LEARNING
STYLES

GROUPINGS

OBJECTIVES

What is Big History

Graphic Organizer.

Visual, auditory,
logical

Whole group, small

groups, individual

Student will be introduced to three

different concepts of history. They
will understand and explain the
ideas of increasing complexity,
goldilocks conditions and history
is a mystery.

Notecard First Memory

Logical, visual,
intrapersonal,
interpersonal

Individual, small
groups

Students will recognize that

multiple perspectives and sources
are helpful when looking at history.

What do you know?

What do you ask?
worksheet

Logical, visual

Small groups,
whole group

We will recognize that there are

some perspectives that are more
trustworthy than others.

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Scale Investigation
worksheet

Logical, visual,
auditory,
visual-spatial

Whole group,
individual

We will recognize the value of

multiple perspectives.

Students will use

Chromebooks to explore
Scale of the Universe
website

Logical, visual-spatial

Individual

We will explore the website to

better understand scale.

Powers of Ten video

Visual, auditory,
logical

Whole group

Students will improve their

understanding of scale.

Student Timelines

Visual, logical

Individual

Students will see their life on a

larger timeline.

Humans in the Universe

Guided notes

Visual

Whole group

Students will understand the

beginnings of the universe and
human existence.

Sidewalk Chalk Timeline

Visual, kinesthetic,
auditory, logical,
visual-spatial

Whole group

We will relate human existence to

the origins of the universe.

What makes us human notecards

Logical

Individual, small
group

To initiate student thinking

regarding the framing question;
what makes us human?

What does it mean to be

human

Visual, auditory,
logical,

Individual, small
group, whole group

Students will be able to identify

characteristics that distinguish
humans from other animals.

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ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
A variety of assessment strategies were used when trying to gauge
the students understanding of the content covered in the unit. Worksheets
were used to assess the students general understanding on perspectives,
scale and the idea of time as we moved through the concepts. Exit tickets
were used to help direct the teaching on the concept of a long time. I
used two summative assessments to gauge the students overall learning
on the concepts of scale, perspectives and human characteristics.
Assessment Strategy

Learning Objective

Formal/
Informal

Example or
Description

What is Big History?

worksheet

Create their own pictures or

definitions for the concepts
of Increasing Complexity,
Goldilocks Conditions,
History is a Mystery

Formal

Picture Below (Student

Work A1 and A2)

Plain of Jars worksheet

Students are able to identify

the importance of different
perspectives. They will
understand the different
types of educational
disciplines. They will be
able to pick appropriate
disciplines and questions to
ask in order to find out more
information about the Plain
of Jars.

Formal

Students researched and

chose from different
disciplines such as;
scientist, historian,
mathematician, etc.
They were then to
explain why they chose
that discipline and ask
them questions about the
unknown origins of the
plain of jars.

Scale Investigations
worksheet for the Powers of
10

Students will write what they

know about scale and the
understanding they have of
how it pertains to history.

Formal

This was a
pre-assessment to see
what students thought of
scale and how it works
with history.

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Scale Investigations
worksheet for Scale of the
Universe website

Students will be able to

answer the framing question
How does scale help us
understand world history?.
They will explain how and
why scale is important to
understanding world history.

Formal

This simply a
post-assessment
question of How does
scale help us understand
about world history?

Humans in the Universe

worksheet

Students will share their

current understanding of the
beginning of existence as
we know it.

Formal

Picture below (Student

Work B)

Humans in the Universe

worksheet

Students will be able to

expand on their original
thoughts on
pre-assessment.

Formal

Students answered the

questions How do you
think the universe came
to be?, Where did our
earth come from? and
How and when did
humans appear on
earth?

Exit Ticket how long is a long

time?

Students will have a new

understanding of a long
time and recognize that
human existence is not a
long time.

Informal

After the sections

activities, students were
asked How long is a
long time? Their
responses determined
whether or not more
discussion on this topic
was needed.

What makes us human?

Summative assessment for
the section.

Students will be able to

identify the human
characteristics we covered
throughout the unit.

Formal

Students created a
poster to display different
characteristics that make
us human. (Student work
C)

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STUDENT WORK

A1

A2

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ASSESSMENT ANALYSIS
Assessment
Strategy

Learning Objective

Results
(Applicable
Graphs)

What it means for

instruction

What is Big History?

worksheet

Create their own pictures

or definitions for the
concepts of Increasing
Complexity, Goldilocks
Conditions, History is a
Mystery

Students did a good job

of grasping these simple
introductory ideas.
Originally, they wanted to
draw pictures or use
examples that I gave for
their examples. (Student
scores out of 10: 7, 10, 8,
9, 7, 9)

I was able to give

multiple examples and
ask open ended
questions to the
students who were
struggling. This
inspired their own
examples and thought
process. The data
shows that the students
have a solid
understanding of the
key concepts.

Plain of Jars worksheet

Students are able to

identify the importance of
different perspectives.

Graph 1

The scores signified

that the students
understood the main
concepts of the lesson.
It also lead me to
further discuss some of
disciplines so that the
students could better
understand them and
have the option to
adjust some of their
answers.

Scale Investigations
worksheet

Students current
understanding of scale
will improve as we move
through the lesson.

Most of the students

struggled to come up with
answers related to
history. They seemed to
focus on the idea of a
weight scale.

I was able to look at

their answers in the
moment and reiterate
that I wanted it related
to history. I provided a
brief example. This
seemed to help as
many students adjusted
their answers to include

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answers that referenced

timelines and answers
in a more historical
context.
Understanding of scale

Students will be able to

answer the framing
question How does scale
and multiple perspectives
help us understand world
history?

Graph 2

The data indicate that

most of the students
were able to grasp the
concepts of scale and
perspective. Student 4
had some struggles due
to behavior issues and
being removed from the
classroom multiple
times during the lesson.
However, based of the
guidelines of the
program, he was still to
be given the test.

Humans in the Universe

worksheet

Students will share their

current understanding of
the beginning of
existence as we know it.

Many of the students

listed God as being the
reason for existence.
Some listed the Big Bang.

This allowed me to see

how students thought.
It allowed me to learn
students beliefs to
ensure that I was
sensitive to them during
my instruction. It also
allowed me to expand
and explain that just
because we are
teaching one thing,
does not mean that
their are not other
perspectives. They
must be respected and
discussed
appropriately.

Humans in the Universe

worksheet

Students will be able to

expand on their original
thoughts on
pre-assessment.

Most of the students were

able to make marked
improvement on their
answers to the same
questions from the
pre-assessment. They
expanded more on their
answers and included
ideas of the Big Bang,

The data and

improvement of
answers shows that the
students are grasping
the ideas and key
concepts of how the
universe began and the
origins of humans.

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creation of stars and

planets and evolution of
humans from
chimpanzees. (Graph 3)
Exit Ticket
How long is a long
time?
How do we know what a
long time is?

Students will have a new

understanding of a long
time and recognize that
human existence is not a
long time.

Student answers were

varied. However, most
contained the idea of
billions of years and that
what may have been
thought of as a long
time previously, may no
longer be seem that way.
Two students seemed to
have trouble grasping the
concept saying 100 years
or 1,000 year ago was a
long time stating that this
was when the Big Bang
took place.

Four out of the six

students understood the
full concept. The next
class period I revisited
the timeline and
showed the students
that where their
answers would fall.

What makes us human?

Students will be able to

identify the human
characteristics we
covered throughout the
unit.

Graph 4

Letter grades
A-2
B-2
C-2
The data indicates that
the students were able
to understand the
important concepts of
the unit. They were
able to include
important information
such as walking upright,
cognitive thinking,
larger brains, need for
social interaction, etc.

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ASSESSMENT DATA
REPRESENTATION

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Reflection on Planning,
Assessments and
Student Teaching
Overall, the unit was quite successful. I went in with the goal of creating a
lesson that was not overwhelming for the students and I think I was able to
accomplish this. I think the lesson were engaging. For the most part, the
students seemed to enjoy them.
However, working at a behavioral school did cause some challenges that I
would like to adjust for in the future. While the data provided shows
progress and understanding, it is difficult to maintain a steady flow of
learning in the classroom. The students are there for behavior concerns
and that must be addressed first. So, learning is often derailed by
behavior, therapy or another program policy.
Another aspect I struggled with was the idea of working in groups. For
these students, group work can be quite the challenge. Yet, that is one of
the goals that we have for them at Nuernberger. I attempted to allow this
with groups of three and four during the first few lessons. I learned that this
may not be the best idea. They tended to argue and act inappropriately. I
later adjusted to groups of two in order to get them used to the idea. Then,
moved back to larger groups.
Still, the data of the assessments shows that the lessons were effective. I
noticed the biggest engagement and understanding from the sidewalk
chalk activity. Here, I took the students outside into the parking lot where I
had created a 100 foot long timeline. On one end was the Big Bang and
the other the Industrial Revolution. We walked the timeline visiting different
important time periods. The combination of kinesthetic movement and
visual of the 100 foot timeline seemed to really help the students

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understand the idea of humans truly not being around for a long time. This
translated well into their assessment of Humans in the Universe.

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