School or District Improvements

Blog: School or District Improvements

Our district in currently seeking to improve the ability to show growth in high-achieving students. When students are performing at a low level and intervention occurs, it is much easier to see growth and progress in their achievements than it is if the students are already high performing. Since the new trend may well be to reward districts based on individual student growth, this has moved from the back burner to the front burner.

One way they are attempting to show individual growth over the school year is through the use of MAP testing. The test is administered in the beginning of the year and then again at the end of the year, and scores are compared. The test is a computerized, self-adjusting test, meaning that as the number of correct answers a student gets, the harder and higher level the questions become. Subsequently, if the student begins answering incorrectly, the questions become easier. This way, a 6th grader who may be reading at an 8th grade level, is still challenged and assessed at the level that is currently appropriate for that particular student.

One of the strengths of MAP testing is that it helps educators understand exactly where their students are performing on an individual basis and can aid in tiering lessons to be sure that instruction is optimal for all of the students. Lessons can be differentiated easily into at least three tiers using this system. The current problem for our district is that our students are already performing at a very high level and capping out the ability of the test to assess their level of understanding. In other words, a majority of our students are already in the highest tier, so showing growth will still be a challenge.

Future assessment will need to show growth in each individual student. Our district focuses a lot on technology so I can see the feasibility of using e-portfolios in the future. I chose to take these technology classes because of this focus on technology. I need to be able to keep up with the advances in technology use in education and right now I am seriously behind. Our chapter readings have gotten me very excited to start implementing some of these ideas in my own classroom. I'd like to see how the use of techniques like PBL, blogging and e-portfolios can help my students achieve their potential and to become lifelong learners as well.

Managing Assessments

One thing that my school introduced this year was the use of a program called Aware. This is an online file cabinet where I can add notes on classroom behavior, test scores, look up previous tests scores (TAKS), or enter information about tutorials. All of the administrators are able to log on and view any information anyone has entered on a particular student or group of students.

We have an online grade book that we use as well. I appreciate the ease of calculating grades, entering assignments, and the ability the parents have to access the grades online. This saves a lot of time that could be spent emailing or phoning parents regarding grades. I can email specific parents in blind copy emails all at the same time. For example, I will send an email to all parents on the day a project is assigned that includes due dates for specific parts of the project. This eliminates the "I didn't know there was a project due" syndrome. Another frequent use of the email function is notifying parents that their student may have performed unsatisfactorily on a test. I can write one email that is sent to all of those parents which saves me a lot of time.

One drawback of the online grade book is that parents often do not read the key at the bottom of the pager which tells them what specific markers are. For example, if a box is blank, it means the assignment has been assigned, but not graded. Many parents think this means that the assignment wasn't turned in even though the key clearly says that a missing assignment is marked with an "m."

One other drawback is that there is no place to write original comments. There is a list of standard comments, but often I want to say more to my parents and the grade book has no option for that.

The Beef on Assessments

My school uses a variety of standardized testing. In the first week of school, student take the CoGAT test which is similar to an IQ test. We have recently implemented MAP testing. This test is taken at the very beginning of the school year and then again at the end. Fifth graders take MAP tests in Math, Reading and Science. This test is helpful in measuring individual growth of students. And finally, we have the TAKS test administered like everyone else.

I teach only science to 5th graders. In the late fall, the students take a science benchmark test which is the most recent released TAKS test.This is the only benchmark we give in science, though I am under the impression that every subject area has a benchmark test.

Currently our school does not use portfolios. I could easily implement this in my classroom though, since I do not let the students throw anything away. At the end of each unit, I have the students clean out their folders. We make folders out of manila paper, and I keep these stored all year until open house. At open house, the parents have at lease 4 units of work that they can look through to see what we have been doing in science.

Project-based learning is beginning to happen more each year in the science department. One of the most favorite activities we do in my class is during our unit on electricity. The students demonstrate their knowledge of circuits, batteries, and wires by building houses and wiring them with lights and switches. This project takes about three weeks to complete. A few days before winter break we set up all of the houses in the hall, make street signs and have a complete town. Then we send out invitations to parents to come to our "Parade of Homes." Some children do commercial places like stores and movie theaters while others make residential homes.

Part of the reason I am taking this class is to learn how to use technology to assess. I occasionally use activotes but I use these more for review than to actually assess their learning. I look forward to learning different ways I can assess students using technology.

Our school subscribes to learning.com and this is the only curriculum I know if that our school has to teach students about technology. The administrators broke down all of the learning strands and assigned them to the different core classes. I found that this year, no one on my team directly taught any of the kids their assigned technology strands. I plan to implement this in my lessons in the upcoming year since my team is reluctant to embrace technology. At 45, I am the youngest on my team and the most willing to try new things.

A personal goal I have is to rewrite the major unit tests that my department gives. When I started teaching here 4 years ago, I was handed the curriculum, and being the new kid on the block, I questioned nothing and did what I was told. Each year my department does a fabulous job of tweaking the curriculum to dispose of ineffective lessons and adding new lessons and ideas, but we've never changed the tests. As the years have passed, and as I have learned more through my masters program, I can better understand just how poorly these tests are written.
I'd like to recreate these tests and add more performance assessments to the curriculum.

A second goal is to see my school make better use of the MAP testing that we spend so much time on. The program can only be effective if we utilize the information we obtain from it. I'd like to have more time to review the results, see where my students are, and create differentiated lesson plans for my students so that I can be a more effective teacher.

My third goal is to learn more about how I can integrate technology into my classroom on a more consistent basis and to learn how to use technology for assessment. I love using technology, but I do not have a creative bone in my body when it comes to integrating into my lessons and assessments.