0.3 A-reef: reflection

A teacher's story

If we think about assessment as casting a net into fertile waters, reflection is about looking at what we have gathered andletting it guide us for "what's next" in our work with our students.

The best way to illustrate this is with A Teacher's Story:

An Example of Assessment and Reflection in Action

A fourth-grade teacher gave an end-of-the-year math test to her fourth-grade students (she cast the net). That same teacher thenpulled the net in and collated the information into a meaningful format so that the fifth-grade teacher who would teach these students in thefifth-grade year could learn from what the fourth-grade teacher had gathered.

Click on the file below to see what was "gathered":

[INSERT documents here. A Teacher's Story: Math Assessment and Reflection.]

By looking at and reflecting upon the information gathered by the fourth-grade teacher (what questions students got correctand what questions they got wrong) the fifth-grade teacher could see individual student's strengths and weaknesses, and group strengths andareas the group needed to work on. The information gathered showed the fifth-grade teacher what to focus upon in the fifth-grade math programright from the start of the fifth-grade year.

Assignment 5: reflecting on what's gathered

Assignment 5: Reflecting on What's Gathered

HOW TO GET TO ASSIGNMENT 5:

One Way

To do this assignment, click on the link in color at the top of the page. When it appears, press "Save" and name the file so that you canwork on this assignment "off-line." You can type right on the assignment template. Be sure to save your assignment on a disk or on your computer harddrive.

Another Way

You can also copy the text below, and save it to your disk or computer.

GOAL: To experience how assessment information coupled with R eflection can inform "what's next" in classroom instruction.

GIVE: Feedback to others on their assignments at the TWB Learning Cafe .

Assignment 5: Reflecting on What's Gathered

• Pretend that you are the fifth-grade teacher about to receive new students into your class. It's the beginning of the school year and youhave just received the assessment documents (from the previous page) from the fourth-grade teacher along with the actual,end-of-the-fourth-grade-year math test. List 5 things you notice about the information that was gathered.
• What might you focus on in math in the fifth-grade year knowing what you know about how the students did as a class and as individuals on theend-of-the-fourth-grade-year math assessment? Why? (1-2 paragraphs)

How assessment and reflection informs practice

By processing the information gathered by the fourth-grade teacher, the fifth-grade teacher could see how to helpcertain students and in what areas because the fifth-grade teacher not only had the assessment results, but the original test as well. The fifth-gradeteacher could also see that as a whole, the class was strong in computation skills, but that they could use more practice with word problems involvingmath.