Assessment5

Katelyn Kaufman Assessment Journal #5 March 5, 2009

The students in this third grade classroom have been working on learning how to tell time. A lot of the students are struggling with being able to tell how much time has elapsed. For example, they do not realize that if it is 7:30 a.m. and a half hour has passed it would now be 8:00 a.m. The teacher decided that it would be effective for the students to play a game that requires that they practice figuring out how much time has elapsed. The students worked in pairs on one morning to play the game. The teacher decided what students were going to work together because she knew who would work best together. She grouped students who were struggling with students who understood the concept. Each pair received a game board that was actually just a piece of paper. They also received two pieces that they could use to move around the board with. There were cards that had different amounts of time on each one. The times on each card were ½ hour, 1 hour, 1 ½ hours, and 2 hours. The game board consisted of times in half hour increments starting at 6:00 a.m. and ending at 6:00 p.m. If a student started at 6:00 a.m. and they picked up a card that said “walk the dog for 1 hour” than they moved their piece to 7:00 a.m. If they then picked up a card that said “help bake cookies for 2 hours” they would move their piece from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. The object of the game is to be the first one to reach 6:00 p.m. While the students were playing the game at their desks the teacher made it a point to sit down with every group. She observed how the game was going. She noticed if children were able to correctly move their pieces according to the elapsed time. She realized that it was helpful for students at differing levels to work together because when one student did not understand something their partner helped them through the problem. Being able to observe the children while they played games was helpful because she was able to see as a whole how the class was doing. She then realized that most of the students were gaining a better understanding of elapsed time. This also allowed her to have an adult from the school work more with the few students who were left struggling. I feel that observation is a wonderful way for teachers to assess students and I would definitely use this when I am a teacher. I like how when a teacher is observing the students she does not have to make it known that she is assessing their learning. She just jumped in with their game and provided them with any help that she found necessary. The students did not seem to know that they were being assessed but rather just felt like the teacher was playing with them. She helped them work through problems but was also assessing their understanding and seeing the exact points that specific students were struggling with. It was also really creative for the teacher to use observation as a form of assessment during a time that the students were having a really fun time. They love playing games and working with their classmates so this was an exciting learning opportunity for them. Observation seems to be a pretty basic way of assessing students but I think that teachers can gain a lot of insight by observing.