Sal Cusmano

Formative Assessment Proficiency

Claim

I have shown great proficiency in the teaching practice of Formative Assessment (FA) over the
course of my teaching placement. I believe I have shown this proficiency because my FAs
included and was tied to a clearly written objective that was based on Michigan State Content
Standards, my formative assessment produced sufficient data to allow me to analyze student
understanding, my assessment instruction was clear and most students understood the
parameters, I was able to make deep inferences of student thinking and understanding, and I
was able to make conclusions about my teaching and I was able to locate areas I could improve
on based on my students’ responses.

Evidence and Reasoning

Clearly Stated Learning Goal
The first way I showed proficiency in my practice of FA was in how I tied my assessment to a
clearly stated learning goal and state standard. My assignment for the students was an
argumentative based writing asking students to argue who they felt won the Space Race
between the Soviet Union and the United States. This assessment was tied to the following
learning goal: “Argue who in their opinion won the Space Race. (Michigan High School US
History standard 8.1.2 Foreign Policy During the Cold War – compare the causes and
consequences of the American policy of containment including: the launch of Sputnik and the
beginning of the space race)”. This learning goal is very clearly written and straight to the point
as it says that by the end of the lesson students would be able to argue who they think won the
Space Race. The learning goal was also tied to a Michigan State learning standard which also
was clearly labeled in my lesson plan. This level of clarity makes it very clear where my FA ties in
with the rest of my lesson and how it is based on State standards.
Launch and Instructions
The second way I have shown proficiency in my attempts to conduct this teaching practice
would be in how I launched my FA to my students and how I delivered the instructions. I gave
my instructions for my formative assessment in multiple ways. The first way I delivered my
instructions was orally as seen here. (FA Video) When I delivered the instructions, I made clear
that I wanted 2 paragraphs of writing from my students arguing who they felt won the Space
Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In addition to this I also said what
content I wanted included such as key events from the Space Race (I gave them the example of
Yuri Gagarin and Sputnik for Soviet achievements), the dates of those key events, and what
made those events so important. (FA Video 0:11-1:11) Following this, I had my students give me
a thumbs up to confirm that they understood the material which they all did. (FA Video 1:11-
1:17) In addition to the oral instructions I also had written instructions for my students to
examine when completing their assignment. The written instructions were: “Using the
information from the Space Race Presentation, write 2 paragraphs arguing who you think
won the Space Race. Be sure to include specific achievements and milestones (for example,
Sputnik being launched or the Apollo 11 mission) as well as the dates these achievements and
milestones took place and why these achievements and milestones were important.”. These
instructions made sure that my students had multiple explanations of the expectations for this
assessment of student thinking and that they were not caught off guard by what I was looking
for in their responses.
Analysis of Student Data
The next way I showed proficiency in this teaching practice would be in how my assessment
produced sufficient data for me to analyze student thinking and in how I analyzed and made
inferences of my students’ understanding of the material. This can be seen in my Space Race FA
Analysis document where I break down the 4 main categories of student understanding that I
received for this assessment. Those being students who completely understood the material,
students who understood the importance of the material, but failed to note specific dates and
the timeframe of the lesson, students who were able to understand the timeframe of the Space
Race and who included specific dates in their responses but failed to explain the importance of
the events they wrote about, and finally students who showed little to no understanding of the
material in their responses. The way I broke the students into these four groups shows that my
assessment provided enough data to separate my students into 4 distinct groupings which
shows proficiency in this practice. In addition to this the ability to break students into these
groups shows my ability to make inferences and determinations of my students’ thinking.
Conclusions for Future Improvement
The final way I was able to show proficiency in my practice of FA would be in how I was able to
make conclusions about future teaching improvements to my lesson. This can once again be
seen in my Space Race FA Analysis document where I note how some of my students failed to
include specific dates for the key events that occurred during the space race. One way I noted
how I could help my students keep track of the timeframe of the Space Race would be to
include a timeline at the beginning of my Space Race presentation that laid out the dates of the
key events in a simple and easy to understand manner. Another way I noted that I could
improve student understanding of why the key events that occurred during the Space Race
were important would be to further stress the importance of the events during the lecture by
saying things like “when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon it was the first time a human
stepped on a planet/moon that wasn’t Earth” and other things along those lines during the
lecture to really drive home why they were so important instead of just saying that Neil
Armstrong was the first man on the moon. By looking at the specific ways that my students
were lacking in their understanding I was able to find target remedies I could incorporate into
my instructional methods of my material to make sure that my students understand the
material.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that I showed great proficiency in my attempts to conduct the formative
assessment teaching practice. I was able to tie my assessment to a clearly written objective and
state standard, I was able to deliver clear instructions in multiple formats to all of my students
regarding the assessment, I was able to gather sufficient data on student understanding and
was able to make deductions and inferences about my students’ understanding from the data I
gathered, and finally, I was able to locate areas where I could improve my instructional delivery
of the material to my students to make sure they understand the material.