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Kally Conto

April, 5, 2022

Reflection in Action
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ELA formative assessment result

Students were asked to write opinion pieces regarding rules in the school. They were asked

to state the most important rule in their opinion and provide two reasons why they believe this. After

viewing assessments it was found that 47.6% of students were able to state their opinion of the most

important rule but only provide one reason why they believe this. It was also found that 42.9% of

students were able to complete and follow the instructions fully by giving their opinion and providing

two reasons. 9.5% percent of students only received ⅓ after viewing writing. One of these two

students just drew on their paper instead of working with the rest of the class. While the other

student did not stick to the topic and wrote about something completely different. TC did not expect

these results since this seemed to be such an easy opinion piece for students.

TC would continue to work on writing opinion pieces since so many students had room to

improve. One way students' writing will be improved is by using graphic organizers to organize
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their thoughts before writing. The next day students will reorganize their thoughts on a new

opinion piece by using a graphic organizer. “...Not only do graphic organizers help our brain

obtain and process more information, but they help our brain to better organize and use that

information.(Miller 6).” After completing an opinion piece during lesson week TC found that

many students need to organize their thoughts before writing. Teacher candidates also found

that many students did not use sequencers. By using a graphic organizer students will more

clearly see where they should use sequencers such as first, next, then and last.

Social Studies Formative results

Whole class was asked to sort rules and laws into categories. For example students would

drag “wear a seatbelt” to laws and “raise your hand” to rules. It was found during this time that 90.5%

of the students confidently understood the difference between rules and laws. While there was 9.5%
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of the 21 students in the class that did not confidently know the difference between the two. This was

to be expected that so many students would know the difference. This was really a review of rules

and laws for the class.

Since so many students understand what rules and laws are this could be taken a step

further by planning for the next student to identify and understand that there are rules and laws in

specific settings. For example in a library it is a rule to be quiet but outside at the playground this is

not a rule. One day two ask students to think of a rule that does not apply to all settings, discuss with

class and share ideas.

Math formative assessment results

While students were doing partnered work, the Teacher candidate went around the room to

observe each student working with one another. Teacher candidates found that 15 of the 21 students

successfully added 10 to a three digit number, while 6 could not. About the same is true when it

comes to subtracting 10, 14 of the 21 students successfully did while 7 students could not. Adding

and subtracting 100 seemed to be a bit more of a challenge to students When observing students it
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was found that only 12 could add 100 and 13 could subtract 100. It was surprising to me that so

many students struggled with place value since this is something they have been taught before.

After doing this lesson the next step would be to review place value. Without the

understanding of place value, it is nearly impossible for some students to add and subtract from

and number. To take a step back and teach place value and adding and subtracting 100 and 10

it is important to use manipulatives. According to (Boggan et al. 5) manipulatives in specific

mathematical subjects are more likely to achieve success than students who don’t have the

opportunity to work with manipulatives. It was found that once students that were struggling

were given manipulatives they started to better understand the objective.

Science formative assessment results

Above is a graph analyzing students' scores on the science rubric scores. Three is the more

a student could score. A student could score 3 if they correctly stated what force was being shown in
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both experiments (non contact and contact forces), took observation notes with details and used the

back of the paper to draw their observation and used details. After analyzing Observation notes it

was found that 13 students got a 3, 6 got a 2 and 2 got a one. During this assessment students

really enjoyed taking observation notes and conducting an experiment.

For the next day's lesson I would go into further depth of types of forces. During this lesson

students really only talked about push and pull and contact and non contact forces. I think the next

lesson would be beneficial for students to learn about directions of forces. One way I would teach

this lesson is to have stations set up for students to go through testing the different motions of

forces. Using learning centers in the classroom is very beneficial for many reasons. According to

(Nations, 9), learning centers help students become more independent workers, become self

motivated and learn at their own pace.

Reflecting on student feedback

In terms of feedback that was provided to my two students and the whole class, I feel that I

effectively provided them with insight to their learning. I found that student A struggles to write during

class. I made sure to take the time with this student to sound out words and talk about their ideas

with them. Over the last few months I have noticed that this student also writes very lightly and

needs to be reminded to press harder and slow down when writing. During my ELA lesson plan I

talked through students' ideas and helped him transfer his ideas to paper. This seemed to make the

student less overwhelmed. This student also could use the feedback I gave him to improve his

writing. Since consistent reminders I am seeing an improvement in students' writing. One way I could

use concrete ways to remind students of their writing is to create a checklist for student to follow. For

example, can I read this?, are my letters sitting on the line?, and are my letters bold and clear?
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Student B is a student that has a hard time focusing. During lesson week I found myself

constantly having to be right by her side to get her to focus and to do work. Some feedback I gave

this student is positive reinforcement. I made sure to let the student know she was doing a good job

and I was proud of her for working hard and focusing. During my math lesson I found that student B

did not know place value. I made sure to go over with her place value and let her use base ten

blocks to show her work. One way I would help this student is to allow her to have her own personal

base ten set to keep at her deck to use during math time.

What I have Learned

As an educator I have learned alot about assessment and feedback. Assessments are

necessary in the classroom. Assessment does not only allow you but allows students and their

families to know their progress in school. By keeping track of students' progress by assessment,

educators are able to see where students need approvement and build lessons off of students'

knowledge. After lesson week reviewing assessments allowed me to see where I would use the data

to inform instruction. If I would have never known that so many students need help with the writing

process and understanding place value. Feedback to your students is extremely important. By

providing students with feedback they are able to know how they are doing in school and where they

need to improve. Not only that, Positive feedback allows students to feel important in their learning.

What I would have done Differently

While I feel that lesson week went very well there were moments in each lesson that could

have gone better. Whether it was simply changing the way students were partnered to change a

whole part of the lesson. During ELA the one thing that truly stuck out to me is taking things one step

at a time. As mentioned early while students were doing opinion pieces, even though a simple

prompt many students had a hard time organizing their thoughts. For unit week it is a goal for

students to have students day one organize their thoughts through graphic organizers before starting

to write their opinion piece. When doing science lessons I found that it was hard for all students to
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have a turn conducting experiments and all students staying focused. For the future Teacher

candidate plans to make sure there are more materials to allow multiple students to conduct

experiments at the same time. There were also a few times over all of lesson week I found that I

wish I thought more about who was partnered together. I found that there are multiple students that

do not work together and this affected their work. While there are things if I could go back I would

change the way things went,I feel as if lesson week was very successful and beneficial to my

students' education.
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Works Cited

Boggan, Matthew, et al. “Using manipulatives to teach elementary mathematics.” 2010, p. 5,

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1096945.pdf. Accessed 14 April 2022.

Miller, Stephanie A. “Using Graphic Organizers to increase Writing Performance.” 2011, pp. 6-7.

https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/57455/Stephanie_Miller_Ma

ters_Project_December2011.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 5 April 2022.

Nations, Jimmy E. “Learning Centers.” 1976, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED120123.pdf.

Accessed 3 April 2022.