3351 Double Entry Journal #11

1.      What is formative assessment? Formative assessment FOR learning, not assessment OF learning.

2.     What is the CENTRAL purpose of formative assessment? The central purpose of formative assessment is student learning.

3.     Connect a best practice in formative assessment to one research-based strategy. Providing feedback is a best practice in formative assessment. It is also a research-based strategy. Feedback needs to be specific, instructive, and timely. Best practices in formative assessment suggest that timing is an important consideration when providing feedback.

4.     Give an example of how a specific assessment can be used formatively and summatively. A rubric is an example of a specific assessment that can be used formatively and summatively. Students can use the rubric while they are working so they know what is expected. Then the teacher can use the rubric summatively to give the students their grade.

5.     Give an example from your field placement related to formative assessment and timing. My host teacher would have her first grade students write sentences about a given topic. She would collect the papers and make corrections without taking a grade. The students would get their papers back the next class period and were to rewrite the sentences before adding anymore. Once they had ten edited and revised sentences she would then give a grade.

6.     What are some strategies to help formative assessment be more effective when providing students with feedback? Some strategies for making formative assessment more effective are to use smaller, more manageable chunks, perform the assessment and then move on to the next task. Provide detailed feedback that helps the students understand what they are doing right.

7.     Name two advantages to high quality formative assessment. Formative assessment helps identify students who are struggling with particular tasks or operating under misconceptions. This can lead to improved instruction that addresses student learning. For students it offers increased feelings of confidence and control. Students who experience this are more likely to transfer learning from one class to another.

8.    What are some challenges to implementing high quality formative assessment? Some challenges are high quality formative assessment is time consuming, requires a lot of effort, and many teachers don’t know how to use it.

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3351 Action Research by FSU Student

1. What is the problem? Students have trouble recognizing rhyme and word families in text.

2. What is the rationale for the project?  Recognizing rhyme and word families in the text helps readers decode new words more efficiently than decoding the words one letter at a time.

3. What strategy will be used to address the problem? A variety of rhyming games will be introduced to the class.

4. What is the question? How can I use a variety of rhyming games to help my students recognize rhyme and word families in text?

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work? Research shows that implementing a range of rhyming games can help students improve their recognition of rhyme and word families.

6. How will data be collected? Data will be collected sing checklists, observations, and work samples.

3351 Action Research Projects by Teachers

1. What is the title of the project? TNLI: Action Research: Curriculum Implementation:
Using Readers Theater to Show Off Good Reading
 

2. What is the Question? How can I effectively utilize Readers Theater to improve the fluency and reading comprehension skills of my students?

4. What strategy is being used to address? The strategy used is Simulations and Games.

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work? The National Reading Panel in 2000 identified fluency as a key ingredient to successful reading instruction because of its effect on students’ reading efficiency and comprehension.

6. How will data be collected to determine if the strategy will work? The methods  used to collect data included surveys, observations, and student fluency assessments.

7. How was the data analyzed? Student performances of Reader’s Theater scripts were taped and analyzed weekly to monitor improvements in fluency. A rubric was utilized for the students to self-assess their own progress during the study.

8. What were the results? The results of the project affirmed that utilizing reader’s theater does lead to improved levels of fluency and reading comprehension. However, while all the students benefited, the results did not show equal gains for all students.

9. How do the results inform teacher practice? Readers Theater improved the students’ reading rate, word recognition accuracy and use of expression while reading as well as their attitudes toward reading.

2201 Ipad Apps Review #2

Stack the States Lite is a United States geography app. You are given a clue and four states to choose the answer from. For instance, Which state has the abbreviation RI? You would then tap on Rhode Island and drag it to the pedestal at the bottom of the screen. A new question appears. When you answer that one correctly, you can then drag that state on top of the previously place state. The goal is to answer enough questions correctly to stack the states taller than the checkered line. This app helps with state capitals, abbreviations, landmarks, and recognizing state shapes. I would use this app in my future classroom to help students learn their geographic locations.

2201 Ipad App Reviews #1

I used an iPhone to look up free educational apps. The first one that I found was SkyView Free. I found it very interesting. I have my daughter playing on it too. Once you follow the instructions on how to calibrate your phone so your location is known, you hold the phone up and it will display constellations, planets, satellites, and even the sun and moon. I would use this in my future classroom to bring the Universe to my students fingertips. This app gives information about the different things they encounter in space. For instance, when you touch on the information for the moon it tells you a person who weighs 160lbs on Earth would weigh 26lbs. on the moon. This could easily be turned into a math lesson.