Reflecting upon my practice prior to partaking in the Teacher Leadership program, I realized that my ability and consistency with analyzing learning was rudimentary. This is an area in which I have definitely seen growth in my practice. A quote I reflected upon in my standard three post is also quite fitting here. Sagor (2011) stated that, "even the most celebrated teachers, who are teaching the highest-achieving students, leave their classrooms frustrated, feeling that despite their best efforts, each individual student didn't progress as far as he or she might" (p. 1). This feeling of frustration is one of my motivating factors for pursuing a graduate degree. I wanted to further my ability to gauge where my students are at any given time so that I can adjust my lesson and help more students achieve more.
My pursuit of bettering my ability to analyze learning began immediately with the Accomplished Teaching class. One of my goals at that time (and one that continues to be a goal of mine) was to strengthen my ability to differentiate within my classes. Where I teach, students often come to school many years behind in their math skills, while a few come multiple grade levels above. This imbalance of mathematical skills results in classes where students are often separated by more than five grade levels of prerequisite knowledge. To combat this, I have to determine how to make the learning both accessible and challenging for each lesson. One of the activities that helped me see a different perspective was when we were paired with another teacher and had to analyze and provide feedback for a lesson plan. I was paired with a high school English teacher and was not convinced that this would be beneficial. I was wrong. Working with this teacher provided me with several ideas about how I could make the lesson more interactive and relevant to my students. The lesson I taught dealt with solving systems of equations. This is an area in Algebra that is applicable in more than one way. My collaboration helped me to see a couple different applications that I had not thought about so that my students would have more access and buy in with this content.
One area that has helped me to better analyze student learning has come from formative assessment. Ensign (2012) states that a good way to check understanding is through the use of an exit ticket which, "allows the teacher to quickly see who has mastered the day's lesson and who needs more support in the following days" (p. 160). Through my studies in this program, I have been able to increase my repertoire of formative assessments and become better at recognizing where those can be placed in a lesson. One piece of evidence came from our learning progression created in the Standards Based Assessment class. This allowed me to visualize and plan a collection of formative assessments within a unit of study.
As I progressed through this program, I further developed my ability to determine how a particular intervention effects student learning. I started this with my Applying Action Research class where we learned what to look for when researching strategies to utilize in our classrooms. This led to a strengthened ability to figure out whether an article presented a valid approach or not. My final product from this class allowed me to show the level to which my understanding of valid research has improved. This helped guide me when I planned and executed my action research project the following Winter. Going through this research project allowed me to put into practice the use of technology with formative assessment. While this was not as successful as I had hoped, it led me to a better understanding of what will be necessary the next time I utilize technology to find out where my students are at in their understanding.
One area that has helped me to better analyze student learning has come from formative assessment. Ensign (2012) states that a good way to check understanding is through the use of an exit ticket which, "allows the teacher to quickly see who has mastered the day's lesson and who needs more support in the following days" (p. 160). Through my studies in this program, I have been able to increase my repertoire of formative assessments and become better at recognizing where those can be placed in a lesson. One piece of evidence came from our learning progression created in the Standards Based Assessment class. This allowed me to visualize and plan a collection of formative assessments within a unit of study.
As I progressed through this program, I further developed my ability to determine how a particular intervention effects student learning. I started this with my Applying Action Research class where we learned what to look for when researching strategies to utilize in our classrooms. This led to a strengthened ability to figure out whether an article presented a valid approach or not. My final product from this class allowed me to show the level to which my understanding of valid research has improved. This helped guide me when I planned and executed my action research project the following Winter. Going through this research project allowed me to put into practice the use of technology with formative assessment. While this was not as successful as I had hoped, it led me to a better understanding of what will be necessary the next time I utilize technology to find out where my students are at in their understanding.
All of the things I have learned throughout this program, relating to promoting student growth, have been useful, but cannot be utilized without the ability to relate my analysis to my students. One of the most important pieces to feedback was presented to me by Chappuis, "Effective feedback directs attention to the intended learning, pointing out strengths and offering specific information to guide improvement" (2012, p. 37). This is important because if students do not understand what my formative assessments are telling students, there is not point to utilizing them. Students need to have a clear idea of where they are in their learning. Additionally, Morris and Chikwa (2016) have found that there is not marked difference between students receiving written feedback and audio feedback. This is valuable because in my daily lessons, I incorporate audio feedback constantly. Finally, research performed by Hudesman et al. (2013) states that, "The research we have reported on, when taken together with an ever growing body of other work, has demonstrated the importance of integrating formative assessment and metacognition with academic content instruction so that students can optimize their learning" (p. 12). The work we have done in this program related to formative assessment, along with the importance of reflection we have seen time and again, are both vital to strong analysis of student learning. The tools we have learned in this program are going to allow me to better evaluate students learning and adjust to help my students grow as much as possible in my classes.
Sources:
Chappuis, J. (2012). How am I doing? Educational Leadership, 70(1), 36-40.
Ensign, J. (2012). Teacher-initiated differentiation. Teaching Children Mathematics, 19(3), 158-163.
Hudesman, J., Crosby, S., Flugman, B., Isaac, S., Everson, H., & Clay, D., (2013). Using formative assessment and metacognition to improve student achievement. Journal of Developmental Education, 37(1), 2-13.
Morris, C, & Chikwa, G. (2016). Audio versus written feedback: Exploring learners ' preference and the impact of feedback format on students' academic performance. Active Learning in Higher Education, 17(2), 125-137.
Sagor, R. (2011). The action research guidebook: A four-stage process for educators and school teams. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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