Tori's+Journal+1

Victoria Carruba February 4, 2009 Assessment Journal 1

On Friday January 30, 2009 I visited my third grade class at Stadium School in Cranston. When I arrived at nine a.m. students were working on their morning work while the teacher checked their planners for parent signature, tallied lunches, and took attendance. During this time, I circulated the classroom to assist any students having trouble with their morning work. They were working on two digit subtraction problems and borrowing from the “neighbor.” Students were having difficulties understanding the concept. My cooperating teacher assessed the students’ progress with these math problems from their feelings and comments. She asked students to set aside their morning work and moved on to Reading Groups. After Reading Groups and Art Class, my cooperating teacher instructed students to work with a partner to go over the difficult problems from the morning work. Students were encouraged to use “math talk” to explain their procedure step by step. Each student would take turns back and fourth communicating and completing problems. As students worked together, my cooperating teacher and I circulated around the classroom listening to students’ explanation as to how they were solving their double digit subtraction problems. The students seemed to be gaining a better understanding of how to complete these problems. After assessing students’ progress from observation, my cooperating teacher felt it was time for a more formal assessment and passed out a pop quiz on double digit subtraction as I left for the day. Using observation as assessment is critical to ensure that all students are learning. Observation is the most used form of assessment because it is ongoing, at all points of the day teachers are observing students and using their observations to drive instruction. Observation helps teachers understand what their students are having trouble with and what they may need more help on. My cooperating teacher said that “assessment should drive instruction” and that’s what she showed today in class. She observed that the students were having difficultly completing the morning work and instead of moving on to previously planned math activity she made more time for students to practice two digit subtraction problems. Through her assessment, she noticed that students had difficulty completing problems on their own. To help students practice the procedures she paired up students based on ability. (stronger math students with weaker) Observation as an assessment tool played a large role in her instruction again as students worked in pairs. She instructed me to listen whether the students were using appropriate explanations for completing their problems. As she and I observed the partnered groups we realized that it was starting to “click” for some students. As a result of this observation she created a last minute, formal assessment which included ten subtractions which would be collected “for a grade.” I believe that her use of observation as an assessment tool was effective in driving her instruction. She showed and understanding of the students’ ability levels and worked to encourage a better understanding.

Back to Tori's Journals