108 Assignment 2: Differentiated Assessment

For the unit that your Lesson Study lesson plan is situated in, what are your student outcomes (unit topic, understandings, knowledge, skills) and your end of unit assessment? How does your planned instruction & formative assessment for the lesson plan move your students toward that goal?

My lesson plan focused on cause and effect in narratives. I want my students to be able to define cause and effect and their relationship, think of examples of cause and effect in their own lives, and be able to explain how events in a narrative demonstrate cause and effect. I also want my students to be able to write sentences explaining the cause and effect relationship between events, and use appropriate language (because, since, so, if/then) orally and in writing to express cause and effect.

I have been assessing my students on their ability to apply the concept of cause and effect on their weekly spelling/grammar/reading strategies quiz. Last week, students had to read a short passage and write an example of linked cause and effect from the story. This week, students had to think of and write their own examples of cause and effect, whether from a narrative or their own lives. Next week, I want my students to be able to write one sentence explaining both cause and effect using specific language, which is what my videotaped lesson this week focused on. I am also planning on including a cause and effect page in their weekly reading packet from now on. Students will need to come up with examples of cause and effect from their weekly reading and explain the connection between these events in their own words.

My students have been working on cause and effect activities during Reader's Workshop time for the past few weeks. In the first week, I would provide either the cause or effect and students had to provide the other event that makes sense. Then, students had to come up with their own examples from a short passage. This week, students had to order various events within a narrative or example in terms of cause and effect. We started working on writing sentences explaining cause and effect using because, so, since, and if/then.

I'm not going to lie, this plan has developed as the lesson has progressed. I didn't know how I was going to assess students on cause and effect, and now, three weeks into the "unit," I have a better idea of how they should progress in their ability to use and apply cause and effect. The primary difficulty I am encountering in teaching cause and effect is that my students reverse the relationship and put cause for effect and vice versa. The second most common problem is that students will put two successive, but unrelated, events in the cause/effect model without realizing that the first event does not cause the second. This week I decided to focus on my students using visuals to order and explain cause and effect as well as having them write sentences so that they could truly see the relationship between events. The assessments have greatly improved.

Assessment is definitely not one of my strong points. I think the quality of my weekly quizzes and the way in which they address the standards and skills I want to teach has improved, but I don't always begin with the end in mind and I really need to provide better feedback for my students. The Tomlinson chapter gave me some ideas for how to better evaluate students and let them know how they're doing. I really liked the rubric that gives room for students to first evaluate themselves and for the teacher to later go through and score the student. Also, the list of questions to build metacognitive skills was incredibly helpful. I think the tic-tac-toe board for assessment was a neat idea, but it's hard to see how elementary students could have the independence, time or patience to complete so many tasks. However, it could be applied for Exhibition Night or the end of a UbD unit in collaboration with evaluating other language arts skills/strategies.