This is it people, last practicum observation of Educ 390! This means I am one step closer to actually being a teacher and not just someone standing around in a classroom! WOOHOO! These last two observations have had observation goals, I ended up making more notes on the final observation goal of formative and summative assessment. I loved going into classrooms and seeing how the teacher ran it, and how it was all laid out but to me seeing how students are being assessed is fascinating. The two teachers that I got to observe were only 2 grades a part, the way the teachers assessed where the students were at were different in terms of how the collected their marks.
The grade 2 class I got to observe, the teacher did several worksheets that had to be handed in. In all honesty that is all Ms. B did was worksheets so that she could mark and assess how well her students were progressing, and then it also made it possible for her to gives these worksheets to the students that are on transition. Ms. B showed how in the beginning of the year she assessed all her kids personally on their reading, writing and math and then went off of those marks to give them the levels they were at. She had a beautifully organized binder with tabs for each of her students, and over the course of the year so far had their assessment scores, some work and comments on how they were doing. She explained that by having this binder with essential information on each student’s progression level made it much easier to then write report cards (which she had done the day before) and give those levels/grades that each student was at.
One thing I did notice though was that all of her students were around the same level. They all completed the same math worksheets, they all worked on the same writing booklets. The only thing that the students differed in, which wasn’t even a big difference, was their reading. Ms. B used Dolch Flash Books, A-Z, and Raz kids to then have the students read books and complete sight words that were at that students’ level of comprehension. This is something that was very different from the venturing and rural schools that I got to observe at. Students working on the same math lesson, or spelling was not a thing. At these other schools the teachers had to prepare several different levels for each subject so that all their students at different levels could part-take in the lesson.
For the grade 4/5 class, Mrs. L did not do as many worksheets but more projects that the students had to complete over several days. One of the main projects that they were working on was a social studies environment/landform project. She showed how the students first had to complete a sheet that had several different questions on these landforms. Once they had received all their information they then moved onto the next step. Mrs. L explained how she did not mark them on completing the worksheet then the picture, and then the final diorama, but would only give them marks at the end. Instead she just observed how the students were working, how they were gathering their information, and then how they were presenting it. Each student then would hand in their own project that represented the amount of work and effort that they would put in.
This was interesting to see how even in the same school, the two-year age difference allowed for such different assessment done. One making sure students handed in their worksheets after every lesson, and one just observing and making sure the students were on task till the final project for that subject was complete. It just goes to show how depending on the grade and age of the students that will have the influence on how they are being assessed throughout the day. It makes me very excited to have a class of my own one day and see the skills they will have and how I will then assess them on their own development.
Leave a Reply