BY JOY WARKE FOR EDUC 3323 PLANNING AND ASSESSMENT WITH DR. AMES Researching Assessments with a view to Planning

On each slide, I have given a description of the assessment analyzed, how the test can be used to plan instruction, and my own evaluation of the assessment. Test taking used to be something teachers utilized to verify mastery. Students often dreaded them! Now, assessments can be used to plan instruction, check for growth, assess background knowledge as well as verify mastery. Effective teaching requires that the students have clear understanding of just what they are to learn and how they can be successful. And a requirement of effective planning is knowing what you will assess.

A Summative Multiple Choice/ Fill-in-the-Answer Test Description: A math test for first graders using multiple choice and fill-in-the- answer questions involving sequence, telling time, addition, greater than/less than, subtraction, story problems, money, geometry, measurement, and place value. Effective Planning: To give this test, a teacher would have to have covered a lot of material! This would most likely be an end of the year or semester test. It covers a lot of the objectives a first grader in Texas requires. It could be used to formulate lesson plans for an extended amount of time. My Response: I found problems 11 and 20 confusing, problem 16 could have some background knowledge issues, and problem 18 did not have a formal place to write the answer. Overall, I thought the test used a lot of different levels of thinking to evaluate the student’s mastery.

Writing Rubrics for Narrative and Descriptive Writing Narrative Rubric Description: A rubric focusing on development and organization, letters and words, capitalization, punctuation and spelling, word choice and sentence writing. Each section has four specific tasks which need to be performed. Effective Planning: A teacher could utilize this rubric to drive her instruction of the various language arts elements it encompasses while teaching narratives. My Response: A fantastic rubric that matches the TEKS, with room for comments at the bottom. The format is more teacher oriented and is still subjective in its grading. I would make the format more teacher and student friendly, with specific ranking of what excellent, good, fair and poor looks like. Descriptive Rubric Description: Same overall focus as the narrative, only the specific tasks are related to descriptive writing. Effective Planning: To use this rubric, the students would have to be taught the writing process, descriptive writing, along with punctuation and grammar. As stated with the other rubric, this could be used to make lesson plans and review needed while teaching descriptive writing. My Response: I found this rubric the same as the narrative. I would reformat it and change the grading to be more specific and definable for the students.

The Essay Assessment Description: an essay for first grade that gives clear instruction of what the student is to write about, a page to draw a picture of what they will write about, a web organizer to formulate a plan, and checklists for the student to edit the paper before turning in. Effective planning: The teacher would need to have taught with web organizers, beginning, middle and end, punctuation, subject/verb agreement and taught on complete sentences for the student to master this essay. My response: I think this is a very good essay format for first graders. I would have made the checklists more into a rubric form to show what excellent work would be like, etc. I also would have assembled all the points together, not some at the beginning and some at the end. Will the students be graded on the picture, the web organizer, or just the final product? How long does it need to be? That would need to be communicated as well.

Informal Reading Assessments Description: A 117 page document with more than 40 informal assessments over phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. The tests are for kindergartners and grade 1, assessing up to 10 th grade. Effective Planning: This is an incredible tool to learn how to teach the various areas of reading. One can use this document not only as an assessment but as a clarifier of what needs to be assessed and taught for effective instruction. My response: I found the document very well-written with many easy-to-follow informal assessments. It would take time to assess all the areas as most involve one-on-one verbal testing. This is one area a teacher’s aid could really be invaluable in! Many charts are included to help keep track of the student’s progress. It can be used as formative and summative assessment.

In conclusion I found a lot of the assessments I reviewed were good skeletons to build on. They took me in the right direction—but I would need to tweak them to meet the student’s needs for clarity and what success looks like. They all fit first grade objectives, and all gave me ideas as to how to plan the lessons so as to meet those objectives. Most were clear and would not give the students great fear!

References (2008). First Grade Math Test. Retrieved from mathematics.com/first-grade-math-test.html. mathematics.com/first-grade-math-test.html Foster, P. (2004) Edmund Public Schools Rubric for Narrative Writing—Grade 1. Retrieved from test.html. test.html Foster, P. (2004) Edmund Public Schools Rubric for Descriptive Writing— Grade 1. Retrieved from r1desc-rubric.pdf. r1desc-rubric.pdf (n.d.) First Grade Writing Assessment. Retrieved from deWritingAssessment.pdf. deWritingAssessment.pdf Ruscue, K. (2003). Cool Tools: Informal reading assessments. Retrieved from