Chapter 7- Assessing Student Achievement

All of the lingo associated with the topic of assessment is mind-boggling!  I can safely say, that even though I have been working in a school for 17 years, I have never heard of the terms:  formative, summative, criterion-referenced, norm-referenced, and validity vs. reliability in assessment. I find the last two to be very confusing.

 The Kellough text refers to validity as, "The degree to which a measuring instrument actually measures that which it is intended to measure (Kellough, 272)." Reliability is defined as, "The accuracy with which a technique consistently measures that which it is meant to gauge (Kellough, 273)." I have chosen to think of a valid assessment as being accurate and a reliable one to be consistent. A good example is to imagine a bathroom scale that consistently tells me that I only weigh 100 lbs.  (I actually weigh 120 lbs.) That scale gives a reliable measurement, but it is not valid.

In my job, I use AimsWeb to assess my RtI students on their reading and math skills.  The assessments are always reliable but not always valid. The assessments are generated by AimsWeb and are scored according to grade level and time period and represent a reliable tool.  The scores, however, are not always valid.  Students do not consistently try to do their best job while taking the assessments.  If a student is sleepy, crabby, unmotivated, or just being ornery, his score can be much lower than if he tried to do his best. If an ADD student did not take his medicine that morning, his score will be lower than it should be.  The AimsWeb assessments give consistently reliable results but with a few scores that may not be valid.  We correct this problem by assessing students more frequently so that we have several data points to work with.

Kellough, Richard D. and N. Kellough. (2008). Teaching Young Adolescents:  Methods and Resources for Middle Grades Teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Chapter 6 - Instructional Planning

Preparing detailed, written lesson plans will be very essential for me as a first-year teacher.  Lesson planning will allow me to be prepared for my students before they enter the classroom and I will be able to fill every precious minute of the class period.  Since we now have the ability to save documents on a computer, lesson plans can easily be revised from year-to-year. The lesson plan can be a place to keep a list of learning activities, assessments, and resources.

Chapter 6 of our textbook mentions the importance of "anchor activities."  I have never heard of this term, but  I am aware of the importance of not allowing middle school students to be left with unstructured time. An anchor activity is something that is always in place for the students to work on.  The teacher might fall back on an anchor activity if the planned lesson does not take up the entire lesson time or if she has to expectantly leave before the end of the class period.  Examples of anchor activities are:

• journal writing
• project
• portfolio
• review of taught material
• learning center
• homework (Kellough, 244)

More anchor activities not mentioned in our text are:

• Read a book that is part of an interdisciplinary thematic unit
• Create a study guide that goes along with the unit
• Work on a teacher-provided study guide
• Work with a group to plan a lesson to teach to the class
• Research a topic that the student wants to learn about and that fits in with the unit

Kellough, Richard D. and Kellough N. (2008). Teaching Young Adolescents:  Methods and Resources   for Middle Grades Teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 5 - The Standards

My certificate is in secondary science and I am taking this class in order to obtain my middle school endorsement in science. For Reading Assignment 5, I evaluated the National Science Education Standards.  I found them to be very comprehensive, easy to follow, and out-of-date.  They were put into place in 1996, similar to the Illinois Learning Standards for Science, which were adopted in July 1997. There have been many changes in science since I graduated from high school.  A few of those changes are:

• Archaea, a new domain was added to our classification system
• The Human Genome has been completely mapped.
• Mammals have been cloned.
• Gene therapy has been used in humans (Mader, 2004).

In order to keep up with our ever-changing world a new set of science standards have been adopted by 26 states. In addition to keeping up with change, the standards have been carefully designed to prepare our students for high school, college, and careers in science. The new standards have been named, The Next Generation Science Standards, and include connections to engineering and technology. They also include connections to the Common Core Standards for English and Math.  

After talking to a couple of administrators, I came to realize that if I get a science teaching position, I will be required to use the NGSS. Dr. Cantu graciously allowed me to use the NGSS for Reading Assignment 6, instead of the Illinois Learning Standards. Completing the assignment allowed me to obtain a small understanding of what the standards entail.  I will need to allow time in the future to study them completely before I will be able to implement them.

Mader, Sylvia S. (2004). Biology. Boston:  McGraw Hill.

Next Generation Science Standards. (2013). http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards