bscal014_journals4

Brianna Scalera Journal # 4 EDC 452 This week in the first grade classroom that I observe and engage in learning with students, the teacher assessed her students using an essay test. For the past four weeks students have been learning about the solar system; the order of the planets, satellites, and moons. Students were assigned to write a few descriptive sentences about each planet that they learned about and they had to include satellites and moons into their paragraph writing. Students were being assessed more on the structure of their sentences rather than the content in their sentences. The teacher looked to make sure there were no misconceptions and the information in the sentences was accurate, but overall the focus was on the structure of the sentence and formation of the paragraph. The teacher gave students about 30 minutes to complete this assignment. The students were able to use worksheets that they had recorded information on previously pertaining to the solar system. Students worked slowly at the beginning, not really knowing where to begin with writing. It was after the teacher posed questions that offered students a starting point, that the students began to write and become engaged in the assessment. The teacher posed questions such as; “is there life on more than one planet?” And “is there a specific order the planets sit within the solar system?” The questions are simple but gave students a starting point. First grade isn’t necessarily a grade that focuses on structure of writing, but the teacher wanted to get a feel for where the students were at, so she combined a previous lesson in with a summative assessment. I found this to be interesting because the teacher wasn’t required to do this type of testing; she did it for hopes to help her students. She will take a look at each students writing and make instructive decisions on what kind of focus/help each student needs in writing. Writing is an important skill to develop so for the teacher to create time to do this type of assessment really surprised me. I feel that I may have gone about doing this type of assessment differently; maybe having students write a story from imagination, but her idea was just as good. I think overall the students enjoyed recording the knowledge they had learned in previous weeks.