Journal+1_Erin

Erin Goulart EDC 452 February 6, 09 Dr. Pete Adamy // Journal Assessment- // //Clayville// //Elementary School//:4th grade Upon my first two visits for my practicum this semester, I am aware there are several aspects I need to focus on for completion, with one of them being the assessment aspect of the classroom, and how the cooperating teacher implements this to his students. There is always a class agenda for the day written up on the white board before the start of class so all the students know what to expect for the day, and I noticed that the first ½ hour and hour of class was spent taking a spelling test and vocabulary quiz. I automatically jumped at this opportunity to more or less investigate how the assessment is structured and carried out with these. I noticed right away that all of the students knew exactly what to pull out, and they all paired up with the person across from them, (which is something I was not expecting during a quiz.) I talked with the teacher and he told me that by the end of the year, all of the students are to be able to spell, and use in a sentence, 100 different spelling words, which he kept a record of each students individual progress throughout the year in a folder next to him. For this particular quiz I noticed most of the words were words of belonging, so to get the students to develop better usage of apostrophes and how they are used. Each student read the word to the other and then used it in a sentence for them, as the other attempted to write the proper word down. The cooperating teacher explained to me that not only did this work faster and more efficiently for him, but also that the students are getting more knowledge from formulating their own sentences to use with the particular word. He walks around and listens to how they are using the word, and after going over a set all week, he knows the students are confident on how they use them. For the students who have a more difficult time with spelling he pairs them up with stronger spellers. This actually poses more of a challenge on both levels of students, which is what he strives for in his classroom. He explained to me that after assessing the student of their final test, he will carry over particular words that one may continue to struggle with to the next set, so he’s never abandoning their wrongdoing, but capitalizing on it. Overall, he stressed that the class was diverse in both strong spellers and struggling, so pairing came easy. He also noted that part of assessing them went along with their weekly writing journals. Each word was highlighted every week in the writing journals that would be spelt wrong. If it appeared more than twice, he would add that word to their list of spelling words for the week. This helps focus them during writing as well, so the lesson and assessment alone is made known to the students throughout the week so they are aware, and after a structured routine was learned, it became apparent that this approach overall helped them become better spellers. I think this technique and structure is really effective for progressive learning.