Evidence of Student Learning

Lauren Phillips

Towson University
Part A

Kenwood High School is a public, inclusive high school that is located in Essex,

Maryland, in the Baltimore County Public School system. There are a total of 1,619 students

enrolled, with a capacity set at 1,918. Kenwood is located in a diverse region of Baltimore

County, which causes the demographics to range greatly. Kenwood is comprised of 50%

Caucasian students, 38% African American students, 6% Hispanic students, 4% of students

identify with more than one race, and 2% Asian students. Fifty-five percent of students enrolled

are male and 45% of students enrolled are female. Six percent of students receive services

through a 504, 57% of students receive services through the Free and Reduced Meal program,

and 14% of students receive special education services. Kenwood High is also home to two

magnet programs, the Sports Science Academy and the International Baccalaureate program.

The majority of students live in the surrounding area, but students enrolled in the magnet

program may travel a longer distance to attend the school. Kenwood High School offers general

education and special education in both self-contained and inclusive classrooms; the school

educates students grade 9 through 12, and offers a cluster program, known as FALS (Functional

Academic Learning Support), for special education students whose disability affects their level

of functioning and academics so greatly that they are not able to earn a high school diploma and

will, instead, earn a certificate of attendance. Students may attend the FALS program until they

reach the age of 21. The average class size for a general education classroom is 27-29 students.

The average class size for a special education classroom is 10 students. The FALS program has

19 students enrolled. The faculty and staff at Kenwood High work hard to ensure a safe

environment and quality education for the diverse population of this school.
 The classroom used for the purpose of this Evidence of Student Learning is one of the

FALS classes, which is a self-contained special education class. This class is for the younger

population of FALS students, their ages range from 14-17 years old; there is also a class for older

students aged 18-21. Of the 9 students in my room, 7 are male and 2 are female. Their

exceptionalities include intellectual disability (7 students), autism (1 student), and multiple

disabilities (1 student). Regarding their cultural and linguistic differences, English is the first

language of all 9 students; one student has a parent from Africa, but English is still the first

language spoken at home. Five students are Caucasian and four are African American. In terms

of their oral and written language development, all students are verbal; however two have a

limited use of oral language, and often use a communication board to support communication, 4

students have goals in speech and are seen by the Speech-Language Pathologist. All 9 students

have goals in written language. Typically, writing is an area of weakness for students enrolled in

the FALS program. For most students in the FALS program, expressing their thoughts,

emotions, and preferences orally is difficult, and it is even more difficult when they are asked to

do so using written language.

For my Evidence of Student Learning, I focused on a small group of 5 students. My class

is broken up into two groups based on ability. The five students I decided to focus on are in the

higher group, but when compared to non-disabled same-aged peers, are significantly below

average. The IEP goal, which most of the students have on their IEP, and on which I plan to

concentrate my instruction for this small group is the student will write two descriptions of a CBI

trip- one to a friend and one to a teacher- choosing from four sentence prompts, using an

informal and formal tone to describe 2 out of 3 trips. This goal relates to the Maryland

Common Core State Standard W.1d for grades 9-10, which states students must establish
and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of

the discipline in which they are writing. The essential skills needed to meet this standard, as

stated by the MCCSS, are manipulate language through varying styles with different levels of

formality, tone, and purpose and integrate quotations, paraphrases, and summarizations of

source material appropriately into written text. The three objectives that I will address to

instruct towards meeting this goal/standard are: Day 1: Given complete sentences, students will

be able to identify sentences with a formal/informal tone; Day 2: Given sentence starters,

students will be able to complete sentences with a formal/informal tone; Day 3: Given a writing

prompt, students will be able to write a complete sentence using a formal/informal tone.

Part B

In order to ensure that students have acquired new skills throughout the given lessons a

pre-assessment must be completed by students before the lessons begin. Often, pre-assessments

are very similar and can be exactly the same as the post-assessment, given after the lessons have

been taught. In this case, my pre-assessment and post-assessment are identical. This will be the

best way for me to determine which skills, if any, have been mastered, and which skills need to

be remediated. Students will be given a short 6-question assessment, each part of the

assessment will correlate to one of the 3 objectives. Questions 1 and 2 will each be one

sentence (one formal and one informal) and the student must identify it as either formal or

informal. Questions 3 and 4 will each have a sentence starter (one formal and one informal), the

students will then choose the best sentence ending to complete the sentence with correct tone; the

students will be given three answer choices to complete the sentence. Questions 5 and 6 will ask

students to write one formal and one informal sentence to answer a writing prompt. This

pre/post assessment align with the Maryland College and Career Readiness Standard
(MCCRS) W.1d for grades 9-10, which states students must establish and maintain a formal

style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which

they are writing. The objectives, activities, and assessments have been simplified to meet the

ability level of the students involved in this unit; however at the end of this series of lessons

students will be expected to be able to write a sentence using a formal tone and correct grammar

and conventions of English.

Formative assessment strategies will be used throughout the lessons to determine

whether students are grasping the concepts being taught. During the lesson on day 1 students

will be given 2-3 sentences, place them on the board under formal/informal, based on their tone,

then as a whole group students will give a thumbs up/thumbs down if they think the sentence is

categorized correctly. On Day 2 students will be given a worksheet with sentence starters and

two sentence strips, students will be expected to complete the sentence with the appropriate tone

depending on the tone from the sentence starter. After students work on the worksheet

independently we will discuss the answers as a group to ensure that all students have the correct

tone for each complete sentence. We will also discuss the key elements that make each sentence

formal or informal. On the last day of this series of lessons, students will be expected to write

one complete sentence using a formal tone and one complete sentence using an informal tone.

At the end of the lesson on day 3 students will be given the following prompts:

1) On Monday, at school, you see your friend in the cafeteria and you want to tell her

about your weekend. Using an informal tone, write a sentence to your friend

describing your weekend.

2) On Monday, at school, your teacher asks you what you did over the weekend. Using

a formal tone, write a sentence to your teacher describing your weekend.

 I will collect data by scoring the pre-assessment based on a percentage for each of

the sets of questions (question 1-2, question 3-4, question 5-6), breaking the pre-

assessment down into these sections will allow me to see which objectives students were

most successful at mastering. I will also collect the worksheets for all of the formative

assessments described. Each assessment will help me determine which students are

grasping the concepts of the days lesson, instead of waiting until the end and seeing the

results of the post-assessment. Using the results of the formative assessment will help me

figure out how to proceed with the next days lesson, should I spend time reviewing the

previous days lesson? or can I move on to teaching new skills?

Principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) are intertwined

throughout each lesson and within each assessment. If necessary, students will have a

picture to go along with each sentence to help them comprehend the sentence, key

elements which help students decide if the tone is formal/informal will be bolded, and if

needed sentences will be read aloud to students to aide comprehension, all of these

provide multiple means of representation. Students will also be given the opportunity to

be assessed using a thumbs up/thumbs down technique, sentence strips, and written

expression, all of these provide multiple means of action and expression. Using a group

discussion to and working in a small group minimizes threats and distractions, which is a

principle under providing multiple means of engagement. UDL principles are extremely

important to incorporate in lessons and assessments because they allow students to be

given the tools they need to be successful and truly show what they have learned.
Pre/Post Assessment

Formal vs Informal Tone

For questions 1 and 2 identify whether you think the sentence is written using a formal or

informal tone.

1) All of the things that Joe has visited seem so cool, I think it would be really awesome to

go see them one day!

a. Formal b. Informal

2) Joe has visited many well-known landmarks all over the world, I believe it would be

breathtaking to see them one day.

a. Formal b. Informal

For questions 3 and 4 choose the statement that best completes the sentences based on the

tone of the beginning of the sentence.

3) While in France, Joe visited the Eiffel Tower

a. he was able to ride the elevator to the top of the tower and take in the beautiful

view of Paris.
b. he rode the elevator to the top and could see the whole city.
4) When Joe was in Japan he saw people walk on hot coals,
a. I do not think I would ever be able to do that.
b. I dont think Id do that.
Pre/Post Assessment

For questions 5 and 6 write a sentence to answer the prompt.

5) Tell a friend which landmark you would most like to visit and why, using an informal

tone.

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

6) Tell a teacher which landmark you would most like to visit and why, using a formal tone.

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
Part C

The students that I chose to use as my focus group for this Evidence of Student Learning

are all diagnosed with disabilities that greatly impact their academic ability. These are high

school aged students; whose reading ability is no higher than 2nd grade; because their

academic skills are at such a deficit all tasks, including objectives, must be presented in terms

and activities that are suitable for their needs. When objectives are presented to students

they are always done so as an I will statement, this allows students to be clear as to what

they will be doing throughout the lesson. The objectives for each day of the ESL are as

follows:

Day 1: Given complete sentences, students will be able to identify sentences with a

formal/informal tone

Day 2: Given sentence starters, students will be able to complete sentences with a

formal/informal tone

Day 3: Given a writing prompt, students will be able to write a complete sentence

using a formal/informal tone.

When presented to students the I will statements are:

Day 1: I will find sentences with a formal tone and sentences with an informal

tone.

Day 2: I will finish sentences that start with a formal tone and finish sentences

that start with an informal tone.

 Day 3: I will write a sentence with a formal tone and a sentence with an informal

tone.

After analyzing the pre-assessment data, I determined the objectives I chose to focus

on, when planning this set of lessons, were still appropriate. Of the 5 students given the pre-

assessment one successfully identified 100% of the sentences in the first part of the pre-

assessment as formal/informal, 2 identified 50% of the sentences as formal/informal, and 2 were

unable to correctly identify formal/informal sentences. Two students were able to correctly

finish 1 of the sentences in the second part of the pre-assessment, the other three students were

unable to correctly finish either of the sentences. No students were able to independently write a

complete sentence using formal/informal tone. Based on the results of the pre-assessment, and

after seeing the difficulty students had with the third section, I decided I needed to scaffold the

skills more, and add a sentence starter to part 3/day 3 and then have students complete the

sentence, but without choices.

I used many strategies throughout each lesson to motivate and engage students. One

strategy I used to increase engagement was use a small group. In a small group it is easier to

focus on individuals, which allowed me to call out students if they seemed to be losing attention.

I also used short, 15-minute lessons, because I know the students in this group are not able to

maintain attention for much longer than that. Students also know that at the end of the 15-minute

lesson they earn a break. Another way I motivated and engaged students was by having them re-

read the I will statement and then asking volunteers to tell me what they thought we were

going to be doing. I also used student names in sentences and wrote example sentences about

topics I knew they were interested in.

 To introduce the new concept of formal/informal tone, at first, I focused on the

vocabulary (i.e. have you ever heard the words formal and informal?). I reminded students

several times that you would use formal language to talk to a teacher, principal, or boss and you

would use informal language to talk to family and friends, giving students these reminders really

seemed to help because they were able to relate the concept to their everyday lives. I also tried

to relate the words formal and informal to other words they may be familiar with, for example I

described formal language as fancy and informal language as the way you may talk in a text

message. I then focused on just a few key elements of formal and informal language that would

help students distinguish between the two, like when using informal language you can use a lot

of emotion, slang words, and contractions; and when using formal language you should be polite,

be serious, and use longer sentences. Then throughout the rest of the lessons and example

sentences I bolded the key elements in each sentence.

Throughout each lesson I dedicated time to modeling, guided practice, and

independent practice. On day 1, I showed many examples of formal and informal sentences,

pointed out the key elements in each that helped me determine if the sentence was formal or

informal. Then as a group students identified formal and informal sentences. Finally each

student was given 2-3 sentence strips and they had to categorize them on the board under the

headings formal and informal, students were expected to do this independently. After students

were finished placing their sentence strips I gave explicit feedback by reviewing each sentence,

asking students to give me a thumbs up or down if they thought the sentence was placed under

the correct heading, and then pointed out the key elements in each sentence that made them

either formal or informal. On day 2, I modeled using the think-aloud strategy. I showed students

a sentence starter, and thought out loud about whether I thought it was formal or informal and
discussed my reasoning, then I read the choices to finish each sentence and did the same thing.

For guided practice I had students do the think-aloud, and guided them through with questioning.

Then I allowed students to practice the task of completing sentences independently. On day 3, I

again used the think aloud strategy to model. These are the steps I went through to model the

informal prompt:

1) Read the writing prompt. Point out that the writing prompt says you are writing to

a friend, so you should use informal language.

2) Look back at the key elements of informal language, which means I can use a lot

of emotion, I can use slang, and I can use contractions.

3) Then write an informal sentence to answer the prompt.

Then I repeated the modeling for a formal sentence prompt. We practiced one together, and then

I asked to students to try on their own. This was still very difficult for students, especially with

the formal sentence, even with a sentence starter. On each of these days I gave explicit

feedback after independent practice. I reviewed each students answers and we talked about

what made each sentence formal/informal. Each days lesson encourages creative and critical

thinking skills because students are required to try each task independently; so often these

students are given answers because their ability is so low, and when they are required to try

something independently critical thinking skills are activated. Students are also given the chance

to be creative because they are able to create their own response to a writing prompt in day 3s

lesson. Formative assessments were built in to each lesson by using questioning and the

independent activity at the end of each days lesson.

Similar to what was discussed previously, Principles of the Universal Design for

Learning (UDL) are incorporated within each lesson. Students were provided pictures to aid in
comprehension of sentences, if necessary, key elements of formal/informal language were bolded

in each example sentence, and students were read sentences out loud if they needed it, all of

these provide multiple means of representation. Students were given the opportunity to be

assessed using a thumbs up/thumbs down technique, sentence strips, and written expression, all

of these provide multiple means of action and expression. Multiple means of engagement were

utilized by using a group discussion to and working in a small group, which minimizes threats

and distractions.

The important points of this set of lessons include instructing students on the difference

between formal and informal language and when/with whom it is appropriate to use each,

ensuring that the accommodations needed for each student to be successful were available to

students, assessing students throughout and at the end of each lesson to make sure the expected

learning has taken place, and reviewing the previous days lesson at the beginning of each day to

refresh students knowledge.

Part D

The following chart indicates each students pre-assessment score, post-assessment

score, and percentage of growth throughout the 3 days of lessons:

Student Pre-assessment % Post-assessment % % Change

Part 1: 100% Part 1: 100%

V.S. Part 2: 50% Total: 75% Part 2: 100% Total: 83% +8%

Part 3: 0% Part 3: 50%

Part 1: 0% Part 1: 50%

U.M. Part 2: 0% Total: 0% Part 2: 50% Total: 33% +33%

Part 3: 0% Part 3: 0%
Part 1: 50% Part 1: 100%

J.W. Part 2: 50% Total: 33% Part 2: 100% Total: 83% +50%

Part 3: 0% Part 3: 50%

Part 1: 0% Part 1: 100%

N.C. Part 2: 0% Total: 0% Part 2: 50% Total: 67% +67%

Part 3: 0% Part 3: 50%

Part 1: 50% Part 1: 100%

A.C. Part 2: 0% Total: 17% Part 2: 100% Total: 67% +60%

Part 3: 0% Part 3: 0%

The data shows that 4 out of the 5 students made a huge jump (+33% or greater) from the

pre-assessment score to the post-assessment score, it is important to remember that the students

involved in this ESL have intellectual disabilities that greatly impact their academic functioning,

therefore the assessment was concise and included accommodations and modifications that

allowed these students to share their knowledge of formal/informal tone.

 To disaggregate the data based on the contextual factors of the school it is important

to know that the group used for the purposes of this ESL consisted of two females and three

males, the two females are Caucasian and the three males are African American. Four of five

students qualify for free and reduced meals (FARMs), and all five students have an intellectual

disability that greatly impact their academic functioning. The only student not to qualify for

FARMs scored the highest on the pre-assessment and one of the highest on the post-assessment.

Two of the African American males scored a 0% on the pre-assessment, but also showed the

most growth on the post-assessment. All of the students are enrolled in the special education

FALS program and showed a significant amount of growth from the pre-assessment to the post

assessment.

One pattern of achievement that I recognized throughout this set of lessons is that the

students who scored the highest on the pre and post-assessment (V.S. and J.W) also have the

highest grade equivalency in reading and writing. I also noticed three of the students who earned

the highest scores on the post-assessment (V.S., J.W., and A.C.) do not have severe attention

issues and do not need a lot of redirection, they are able to stay focused on each task. Another

pattern of achievement that I noticed was that 4 out 5 students were able to score 100%, and the

other 50% on part 1 of the post-assessment, this was the highest average percentage of any single

part, and I believe that is because students were asked to perform the low-level task of

identifying formal/informal tone. When analyzing patterns for lack of achievement, I noticed

that all students still struggled to complete a written sentence using formal/informal tone on the

post-assessment. After giving the pre-assessment, I recognized this as an extreme area of

weakness, so I decided to amend the assessment and allow students to use a sentence a starter for

the post-assessment, but students still struggled to complete their own written sentence.
 The Maryland Common Core State Standard W.1d for grades 9-10, which states students

must establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and

conventions of the discipline in which they are written. and the IEP goal, which states, students

will write two descriptions of a CBI trip- one to a friend and one to a teacher- choosing from four

sentence prompts, using an informal and formal tone to describe 2 out 3 trips, are the overall

aims throughout the school year, due to the nature of each students disability, in this group,

retention is low, which means, in the future, students need to periodically be exposed to similar

lessons. Although I believe I will need to start each set of lessons by asking students to identify

formal/informal sentences to refresh their memories, in the future, I will focus my instruction on

having students write their own sentences.

Part E

Upon reflecting on this set of lessons and assessment data on formal/informal

language, I feel that, overall students were successful and knowledge was gained. All

students were able to increase performance from the pre to the post-assessment; and 4 out of 5

students were able to increase their performance by more than 33%. Students are now able to

recognize formal/informal language and associate it with whom they should use it (i.e. teacher or

friend); however most of the students still struggle to independently write a complete sentence

using formal/informal tone so regular exposure to this topic needs to be continued throughout the

school year for mastery of the standard and IEP goal.

The first factor of instruction that positively influenced student learning was the use

of a small group. The students included in this ESL strongly benefit from small group

instruction because of the severity of their disabilities. In small groups I am able to more easily
focus on individual needs throughout the lesson. Another factor of instruction that positively

influenced student learning was limiting each lesson to 15 minutes; again because of the severity

of each students disability attention span is a struggle. Based on observation throughout the

lessons, using student names in example sentences was also an effective instructional strategy

because if students were beginning to lose focus, hearing their name or a classmates name

regained their attention. Scaffolding the lessons also seemed to be an effective instructional

strategy, the results of the pre-assessment proved that most of the students did not even know the

difference between formal and informal language when given a sentence, therefore they could

not write a sentence using formal/informal language, so we had to start by being able to

recognize and identify formal/informal tone, which was the objective for day 1 of this set of

lessons.

Based on implications acquired from the student achievement data future

instructional activities would need to be centered on writing a sentence using

formal/informal tone. The post-assessment data indicates that 3 students were able to write one

out of two complete sentences using formal/informal tone, and 2 students were still unable to

write a complete sentence using formal/informal tone. The 3 students who were able to write

one complete sentence all successfully wrote a sentence using informal tone, but could not write

a sentence using formal tone, and I allowed students to have a sentence starter on the post-

assessment, which was a modification used after seeing the students struggle on the pre-

assessment and throughout the lesson. In the future devoting more time to the actual writing,

should increase students ability to write a sentence using a formal or informal tone. Another

aspect of instruction I would change would be that when it comes time to have students write the

sentences I would focus on one type of tone at a time. I would devote an entire lesson to formal
tone and an entire lesson to informal tone, which would allow students to practice (and hopefully

master) writing one type of sentence before they are expected to write a different type of

sentence.

Collaboration is an extremely important part of creating successful lessons, which

meet the needs of all students, and still relay the content that is expected for each topic. I

find collaboration most useful because I am able to gain ideas and perceptions from other

professionals who either work with the same students, or with the same topic that I am teaching.

For this particular set of lessons I can collaborate with an English teacher. An English teacher

would be able to give me more examples and ideas on how to present formal and informal

language. I also collaborate daily with the other FALS teacher, we share the same students, so

we constantly discuss the struggles and what seems to be working for each student to be most

successful.

As professionals, there is always room for improvement, two learning goals that I

would like to focus on after reflecting on this ESL are CEC standard 2 and CEC standard

4. CEC standard 2 focuses on the learning environment, while I believe the small group was a

huge benefit to the students, they also become distracted by the students in the other group;

therefore in the future I would like to find a way to separate the groups more, by either

physically moving the groups further away from each other in the classroom, or using some kind

of partition to separate the groups. The other professional learning goal that I chose to focus on

is CEC standard 4- assessment, I would like to increase my use of formative assessments

throughout lessons and my use of authentic assessments overall. Because students in the FALS

program have disabilities that affect their academics and functioning so greatly they rarely do
anything academic independently, I would like to increase my use of authentic assessments so I

am able to see what students are truly able to do independently.