Amy

Frankforter
EDU 602-03
Critical Piece for Assessment



The Objective and Task
When selecting a task for this critical piece project, I decided to choose something
that would have a significant impact on my students, the classroom environment
and my teaching practices and be sustainable. Because our school has implemented
Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBiS), I chose to align this assignment with
our building culture of positivity and reinforcing effort for hard work.

This spring, certificated staff committed to implementing a new system for
classroom behavior management that places an emphasis on positive rewards for
student effort, called a Clip-Up Chart (Morris, 2009). I have created my holistic
scoring guide/Kindergarten Effort Rubric to include features of this system in order
to reflect the importance of recognizing positive contributions to our classroom and
school community through high levels of effort. I believe it to be effective because
parents, staff and students work together to ensure success in school. I began using
this system and holistic scoring guide when our class reconvened after spring break.

While this holistic scoring guide is not related to a specific assignment or academic
task, the impact on student learning is evident from the data collected. I believe it to
be true that student achievement increases when effort and hard work is recognized
and evaluated using a common rubric. Note the following instructional strategy:


Reinforcing effort and giving praise. Simply teaching many students that added
effort will pay off in terms of achievement actually increases student achievement
more than techniques for time management and comprehension of new material.
Praise, when recognizing students for legitimate achievements, is also effective.
(Marzano, 2000)

Therefore, the objectives of this task were:

1. Students will exhibit on-task behavior during whole-group instruction.
2. Students will be able to self-assess to adjust learning behaviors to improve
the learning environment for themselves and others.


In order to collect data to support what I had been observing, the students kept
track of the place on the clip-up chart that they were on at the end of each day using
a student-recording sheet. We set a classroom goal after the first week of
implementation that all students present in class each day would work to achieve a
green or higher at the end of the day to receive a warm fuzzy (a cotton ball)
dropped into a jar. When the jar is full, the students receive a class reward. The
entire class collaborated to create a list of highly motivating rewards. All the
student suggestions were placed in a second jar to be drawn out when the warm
fuzzy jar was full.

The Result
Data was collected in the following manner:

1. Students recorded personal results every day.
2. The entire class decided if we had accomplished our goal each day, earning a
warm fuzzy for the class jar.
3. The recording sheet data was entered into a teacher record book.
4. Recording sheets were sent home for parent signature, then returned if
necessary.

During the data collection period (approximately 4 weeks), it was determined that
the class had met the class-wide goal 17 out of 19 days, or 89%. There was a daily
average of 15 students present.


Reflection
Although it did not seem like it would be a good time to implement a new classroom
behavior management strategy (the beginning of the year is best), I was impressed
that the majority of my students embraced it quickly. When my students helped to
create this effort rubric, and because it was tied into our classroom management
system, they instantly became invested in its success and began to conduct
themselves accordingly. They began to show belief that they held a responsibility to
improve the classroom environment to support their own learning and the learning

of others. In addition, I noticed that my students recognized their positive behavior

choices as contributions to the overall building culture at Huntington.

There were only two days that we did not meet our classroom goal, but the students
were able to show a positive attitude and understood what their strengths were and
the challenges they faced. We incorporated the discussion of this effort rubric into
our class meetings, held three times per week. At 89% success, this assessment tool
has shown to be an effective and positive addition to our classroom culture.










References
Morris, Rick (2009); Clip Chart: A Simple Discipline Strategy for Promoting Positive Behavior, New
Management, San Diego, California
Marzano, R. (2000); What Works in Classroom Instruction , Alexandria, VA. ASCD