| Project
Proposal
With the
inception of the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) has come the
necessity of aligning curriculum to the standards.
Within my school, and specifically at my grade level, we have
identified writing as a deficit skill.
In response, my co-teacher and I spent this summer creating a
“Communications” curriculum to be used at the fifth grade level.
Our curriculum covers basic computer literacy, the three types of
ISAT writing (narrative, persuasive, and expository), speech,
capitalization, and punctuation.
I
have always found writing to be extremely difficult to assess.
Over the past three years, I have attended several workshops
sponsored by the Illinois State Board of Education designed to help
teachers prepare their students for the ISAT.
I have a good idea of what is expected, but am yet to find an
effective assessment for fifth grade students.
Because the Communications curriculum is writing intensive, I would
like to develop a set of rubrics that are effective for fifth grade
students. I need my students
to understand what is expected of them.
In
addition, I would like my students to create a Communications portfolio
throughout the year. I would
like this portfolio to contain writing samples, as well as all technology
projects each student creates. At
the end of each nine weeks, I would like my students to choose part of
their portfolio to be graded. I
have extremely limited knowledge of portfolio assessment, but am eager to
try it.
|
What
I Know
|
What
I Want to Know
|
What
I Learned
|
| Recent
5th grade ISAT scores.
Illinois expectations for
5th grade writing
The skills I want to assess
and evaluate.
The kinds of assessment
tools I want to use. |
Effective
strategies for creating rubrics. |
I
have learned many strategies for creating rubrics this
semester. I was reminded to always identify specific
learning outcomes that I want to assess. It is important to
choose outcomes that are observable. Most importantly, I
learned that characteristics and points on the scale must be
clearly defined. This is a tricky point as it can make a
rubric seem overwhelming. However, it does make the rubric
more user friendly. Finally, I learned that every rubric
should have between three and seven rating positions - each of
which is clearly defined.
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| Will
rubrics increase student understanding of ISAT writing
expectations? |
I
think my students do have a clearer understanding of ISAT writing
expectations due to the rubrics I created this semester. It
is hard to connect work we are doing in the fall with a
standardized test that will be administered in the spring.
At any rate, I was pleased with the quality of writing my students
produced with the rubrics. |
| Effective
strategies for portfolio assessment. |
I
feel that I have gotten a great start on productive portfolio use
during this semester. Not only did I study portfolio use in
this class, I also attended two workshops and consulted with
several colleagues on the topic. The advice I received most
often was, "START SMALL!!" I originally intended
to get a grade from the student portfolios each quarter.
However, I eventually decided that I was not ready for that
step. This year we will practice self-evaluation and use the
portfolios to show progress throughout the year. I have many
ideas for portfolio assessment and am excited to try them as I
grow more comfortable with the concept. |
| Will
portfolio assessment increase student ownership of work? |
ABSOLUTELY!!
When my students are required to take an honest look at their
work, they begin to realize its importance. I have started
to use this self-evaluation in more areas than just my
portfolios. In the beginning, nearly every student
gave themselves an A on every assignment. Now they are
becoming more critical of their work, and their work is improving. |
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