Journal+Four_Nicole

On Tuesday March 3rd I visited my cooperating teacher’s fourth grade classroom in the afternoon. When I arrived, the students were still at recess for another ten minutes. The teacher thought this was a great opportunity for her to show me a type of assessment she uses during progress monitoring called AIMSweb. AIMSweb is a progress monitoring system based on direct, frequent and continuous student assessment. The results are reported to students, parents, teachers and administrators by a web-based data management and reporting system to determine response to intervention. While AIMSweb is used to evaluate the entire classroom, it is especially important for the students who are being progress monitored to show whether or not they have fallen behind, stayed the same, or improved in several content areas. Students who are exceeding in content areas based on classroom and nation wide criteria are involved in the benchmark. These students are assessed three times per year for screening. Students who are average or at risk of falling behind in content areas are strategic monitored, where they are evaluated monthly. Students who are progress monitored are assessed every week or two weeks and are written individualized goals and are given intense instructional services to rise to the classroom or nationwide results. AIMSweb content tests are given to students on an individual basis. The first time the test is administered the whole classroom participates, though when students exceed the test they do not take it again until before the next parent-teacher conference. What my cooperating teacher has done is used AIMSweb as evidence for parents to show how their student matches up to classroom and nationwide expectations and averages in each content area. AIMSweb organizes and allows teachers to print a graph that shows a line of progress over time compared to nationwide and classroom progress over time. Although AIMSweb is available online, it can also be administered in a worksheet format. What I really like about AIMSweb is that it is a form of continuous assessment. Despite this, I think it is important to allow the students to be able to practice the test before they are judged and evaluated in their first progress monitor. What I noticed is that the teacher does not give students a chance to practice before she puts them on the list of progress monitoring after a student’s first evaluation. I think students should deserve a practice round because from examining the tests the students take it seems a little overwhelming and intense for a class of fourth graders to complete. For example, six pages of multiplication problems with about 25 problems on each page makes up the math content assessment. Not only are the number of problems that need to be completed overwhelming, the students are under time pressure as well. Students have been taken off of progress monitoring mid-way through the year already. While this could easily be from the intervention the teacher administered for the student to get them back on track, I would argue it could have something to do with the fact the students had to practice this type of pressuring assessment rather than know the content before they could show positive results. Although this type of assessment obviously has its flaws when it comes to evaluating how authentic it is, I do believe it is a great tool to use as evidence for all involved in a student’s education.