Utah Assessing

Since I am a history education major, I do not need to worry about standardized testing. What a relief. Standardized testing seriously makes my palms sweat.

I can support and prepare the students for this testing by teaching them good test taking skills and not planning a huge assignment or give them lots of homework during this testing. There is no need for me to stress the students out even more by giving them something that will give them anxiety or effect how they do on this test because they can not stop thinking about how they have so much homework to do.

Good test taking skills can be useful for the rest of your life--so it is important that teachers teach students these skills. Encourage students to get enough sleep before the tests and to eat a good breakfast. It is hard to think when your stomach is growing or you are so tired you can barely keep your eyes open. I also think that you should give you students facilitating anxiety, but not dehabilitating anxiety. You want your students to perform well, but you don't want to stress them out so much that they think it is a life or death situation.

Praxis II

When do you plan to take the Praxis II exam for your subject area?

April 2011.

What is the minimum score that you must earn on the exam to qualify for your initial teaching license?

History endorsement: 156

Look at the topics covered in your exam. What do you need to do to fully prepare for this test?

For World and US History I must know World History: Prehistory to 1400 CE, World History: 1400-1914, World History: 1914-Present, United States History to 1791, United States History 1791-1877 and United States History: 1877 to the Present. The exam in 120 multiple-choice questions assessing knowledge of historical facts and movements and comprehension of historical trends and theories across the content areas of world and United states History. Questions will asses understanding of historical analysis: cause adn effect, evaluating sources, points of view, and interpretations; change and continuity over time; and comparisons at multiple levels.

Look at the sample questions for your exam. Can you answer them?

I can answer most of the questions, but not all of them. This makes me really nervous. It looks like I need to study a lot more before I go and take this. I am not very good at multiple choice tests, because I completely overanalyze every answer. Instead of searching my brain for the answer, sometimes I read the question and the answers and think the teacher administering the test is trying to trick me. Then I start to analyze all the wording of the answers and guess which one is correct based on how it is worded, instead of which answer is correct.

When do you plan to take the Praxis II PLT?

I do not know when I will take the Praxis II PLT.

Look at the topics covered on the Praxis II PLT exam. Compare them with the Table of Contents in our textbook and your syllabi/textbooks for any other Education classes you have taken/are taking. What do you need to do as a student to prepare for this exam?

Student Development and the Learning Process

Students as Diverse Learners

Student Motivation and the Learning Environment

I think that most of my education classes have covered most of these topics. What I will need to do before I take the Praxis II PLT is review my notes from previous classes and review the textbooks. A lot of the topics on the PLT are topics that we are going to cover in Educational Psychology. In fact, a lot of them we have already covered.

Look at the sample essay and multiple choice questions for the PLT. How does this preview of the test change your perspective of your coursework and how you study?

I guess I never really realized that I would be tested again on all of the stuff that I am learning in school. So often I think that once I am done taking an exam or writing a paper, I am done with that information forever. This is clearly not true. I am going to need to recall all of this information later in my life so I can be a teacher.

Assessment Blog

Assessment Types:

Observations:

A type of informal assessment and could be both formative and summative. It is both criterion and norm referenced because you have a checklist of what you want students to be able to accomplish and how well one student is doing it compared to other students. This type of assessment would happen during the course of instruction and the teacher would engage the classroom and observe what the students are saying and who is participating. Unfortunately, informal instruction are not systematic, so they can provide an incomplete or inaccurate picture of students' learning. Since some students are more likely to participate than others, this assessment might not be as fair or reliable as others. It is very practical because you do not have to write a test or take a long time preparing to informally assess. The assessment will be valid as long as the questions you ask the students are intended to measure what the they know.

Self-assessments:

This could be a formal or informal assessment, depending on how the teacher gives the assessment. It could be given in a one-on-one situation or on a piece of paper after a unit or project. It is a criterion referenced assessment because there are certain requirements that you want a student to fulfill and evaluate themselves on. If the student is honest, it is valid, reliable, fair and practical. If the student is not honest, it is not valid, reliable, fair or practical. If some students are honest and some are not, it is not a fair assessment. Some students could say that they worked really hard when they did not. Other students will be too hard on themselves and even though they did an excellent job, they will say that they could have done better. Self-assessments are nice because if you feel you can trust what your students say, you can see if a student did do the best that they could even if it wasn't the best project that was turned in.

Peer-assessments:

This would be a formal assessment at the end of a group project. I think it is norm referenced, since you are comparing your contributions to another students contributions. This type of assessment may not be reliable or valid because students may give another student a bad grade just because they don't like them or may be intimidated by another student and give them a good grade even though the student did nothing. It may not be fair because like I said, students may not be completely honest. If students are honest, then this is a really good type of assessment to see how the group worked together. IF the students are honest, it is a very practical assessment, because you get to get the opinions of other students and see if each team member participated. Teachers can't be everywhere at once, so it is nice when you can get some feedback from students.

Projects (things students make ABOUT the topic - e.g. posters, research papers, etc):

Of course, it depends, but I think the most effective way to use a project is to use it as a formal summative assessment and criterion referenced. If you provide a rubric then the assessment would be reliable and fair. With a rubric, students know what is expected of them and are in control of their own grade. They can decide what they want to do and if they do not want to include something in the project and get points taken off. Rubrics are a little tedious since you have to go through every project and evaluate each student and use judgement if they should get full points or not. It is practical because students can be in control of what they want to do with their project and what they want to learn from the project. The assessment is valid as long as the teacher does a good job explaining what they expect and the students follow through on what is expected.

Performance (things students do WITH the topic - e.g. conducting a debate, running a mile, creating a meal plan, analyzing a poem, etc.):

This assessment could be both formal and informal. I would use this as a formative assessment and used during a unit. It is criterion-referenced and valid, reliable and practical. Depending on the assignment, it might not be fair to every student. In a gym class, a student could get a bad grade on completing a mile in a certain time because they are ill or because of a medical condition. Students are not always good at analyzing poems and unless you are open to really "out there" interpretations, students might get a bad grade. I think that sometimes teachers expect students to know what they exactly what they are thinking. These assignments are reliable because you can see how much a student knows by hosting a debate or having them create a meal plan using the information that they have learned already.

Portfolios:

This is a summative assessment, since it should contain a lot of assignments throughout the course of the year to see if a student has improved. This type of assessment is fair, valid, reliable and practical. The only way that it will not be reliable is if the student chooses not to do the assignments and you cannot show the parents how their child has improved. I like this type of assessment, but I do not think it is very practical for some classes. I can see it working in an english or art class, but I can't see it working well in a history class.

Tests:

This is a formal, summative assessment. With a test, you plan for it and have a set date and time for students to take the test. This provides information at the end of a unit or the end of instruction and are used to give the student a grade on what they have learned. The test will be valid if the questions that the teacher writes are clear and the student can understand what you are asking them. It isn't fair for some students because some students are not good at multiple choice tests. I think it is fair if you put a variety of questions on the test. The test is not always reliable because it doesn't always test what the student knows. The student may know a lot of information taught in class, but it might not be on the test. These kind of tests are practical because they are easy to grade and when a test is written well, and a lot of students miss a test question, it shows you that you did not get your point across and you must re-teach that question.

Field Response Journal Part I

QUESTION 5:

In the classroom I observed in Exceptional Students, I felt like the teacher did not really help the students with special needs more than the ones that did not have special needs. Maybe this was a method that she liked to not bring attention to the special needs students, but I did not really agree with what she was doing. I felt like she acted really annoyed when a student would ask for extra help. She allowed students to turn in their assignments late for full credit, but I felt like there was a lack of structure in her classroom. One of the students had a traumatic brain injury and had trouble remembering and had trouble with his behavior. When the student would act up, the teacher would tell the student to stop and if he did not, he went out in the hall. How was this fixing the behavior? It wasn't--the student was just missing out on what they were learning in class while he was out in the hall. The accommodations were not appropriate. There was a student with a speech impairment, and a couple students with ADD, but none of the students were acting out in class and the teacher didn't really say what she did to accommodate these students. For students with speech or language impairments, according to Moreno, we should provide language models by reading to students, supplement instruction with audio tapes and videotapes, give plenty of opportunities to use listening and expressive skills, positively reinforce students' attempt to comprehend and express ideas, scaffold students with prompts, questions and restatements, and encourage classmates to talk and encourage those with a speech or language impairment to talk. When a student has suffered from a traumatic brain injury, Moreno suggests that you sit the student near you, minimize distractions and allow earplugs to reduce external noise, provide written materials to back up instruction, display the classroom activity schedule and follow regular classroom routines, use peer note takers and allow tape recording of lectures, use memory aids such as organizers, fact cards, and cue cards, provide in school training and maps for between-class travel, plan frequent breaks and slow the pace of presentations, give extra time for classroom assignments, check for comprehension regularly, and repeat information and provide frequent practice opportunities.

QUESTION 6:

In one of the classrooms that I observed, I noticed there was a diverse mix of students. There were students of almost all ethnicities and they all had different interests. There were caucasians, african americans, hispanics, pacific islanders, and asians. A couple of students learned english as their second language, but were very good at understanding what the teacher wanted them to do. I noticed how a lot of the students were dressed differently. The teacher did not favor the caucasian kids and called on any student that wanted to participate. The school has certain weeks that celebrate diversity and different cultures. The student council also brings attention to holidays that aren't necessarily celebrated by everyone in the school. According to Moreno, teachers should watch for students that can be at risk. The student's chances of being at risk is higher is a student is a member of a cultural minority. As a teacher, you must understand that sometimes in some cultures family duties are much more important than an education. You have to talk to your student and try and work out something so the student can still be successful even if they have to go away to fulfill a family duty. As a teacher, you can celebrate different cultures and appreciate everyone's different backgrounds and encourage students to express themselves. Moreno says to be a multicultural teacher you must show deep caring for all students, provide clear learning objectives, communicate high expectations for all students, monitor progress and provide immediate feedback, explain the rationale for instructional methods, embed instruction in culturally meaningful contexts, provide opportunities for active learning in groups, commit to students during and after school hours, use materials and practices that are culturally relevant, and have several years of teaching diverse students (which will come eventually).

Educational Neuroscience

Frances E. Jensen, MD

What?

Jensen is researching the teenage brain. It has been poorly understood if the teenage brain is substantively different from the adult brain. Not enough research has been done about the developing teenage brain with respect to high school education, how they are treated in the legal system and how they might be esepcially vulnerable to substance abuse and addiction. Jensen is doing research to find out if we should be treating teenagers differently because of the way their brain is working at their current stage of life.

So What?

If research shows that teenagers should be learning a different way, then the way we teach teenagers will change in order for their learning to be at maximized. Jensen's research shows that the teenage brain has a different level of ability to learn, but there may be some vulnerabilities that we do not know about yet. Teenagers have a heightened ability to learn and retrain information, but still make poor behavioral judgement. This is because the last place to connect is the frontal lobe, which controls insight, judgement, and blocks you from taking part in too much risk taking behavior. Jensen has also researched the difference of brain development for girls and boys. Girls' brains seem to reach maturity 1-2+ years before boys. Girls myelinate two or three years earlier than boys, which maybe suggest that we consider gender-based learning. Girls might be ready to learn certain things earlier than boys because they mature sooner. Ideally, teaching to an individual's development would be the best strategy, but this will never happen. This research shows that everyone is at a different level and a teacher can not expect that every student learn the same. These are all things to consider when I am teaching and communicating with my students.

Now What?

Hopefully by the time I am teaching, Jensen's research will be complete and I will be able to apply it to my teaching strategies. I want my students to learn everything that they can and be able to retain the information later. It is important to teach students in a way that is effective for them. Since teens frontal lobes are not fully connected, I must realize that they do not think the same way that I do and they might not understand what I am talking about or the consequences that they face. Her research also says that teenagers are more vulnerable to addiction, which is why it is important for me to stress that they stay away from that stuff. It is also important that I stress to not just be smart inside the classroom, but to also be smart outside of the classroom. At this age, students are driving and they can make one mistake and it could be fatal.

Course Contract Review #1

What are you doing well?

I am reading the text, doing the assignments, and memorizing the material.
What are you not doing well?

I am not applying the concepts well. I understand what a term means, but I don't know an example of it or how it applies to students. I thought that I understood everything, but from the results of the last test, I obviously don't.
Are you making sufficient progress on your goals?

Yes. I am becoming a better informed educator and I am completing the assignments in the class. I do not have an A in the class right now, but hopefully that will change.
List specific things you need to change in order to meet your goals.

Learn to apply the terms to real life and real students instead of just know what the terms mean. I also need to stop being shy in class and ask questions when I do not understand.
How is your motivation? Are you focusing on mastery or performance goals? Does anything need to change?

My motivation is pretty good. Obviously I want to go outside and enjoy the nice weather, but I keep in mind the goals that I have for this class. I am focusing on both mastery and performance goals. I think I need to become more excited about the material and what I am learning. This is very interesting stuff and I need to enjoy what I am learning and not just learn it to take the tests.

Motivation

I am in this class because it is required, but I am also in this class because I heard it was super interesting. I am in the education program because I want to be a teacher. I have always wanted to be a teacher and look forward to teaching history to young adults.

The hope of being successful motivates me. I always try my best and hope that it is good enough. I am also motivated by my parents, since they will stop paying for my education if I don't do well. The main thing that motivates me is my future. I have always been a firm believer that you should not just live for the moment, but you should think about tomorrow, and the next day... and well, the day after that. I try to act in a way that will benefit my future.

I succeed because I try and I fail when I don't try. I have learned to overcome learned helplessness and no longer think that everything I do will not be good enough or will not get the grade that I want. I have found that when I have a positive outlook and think about what affect certain things will have on my future, I succeed. When I fail it is because I didn't work hard enough or I decided not to care. I also fail when I get really bad anxiety. I feel like most of my anxiety is dehabilitating and when this happens I fail. This is why I have learned to get things done more than an hour before it is due. I do not work as well under pressure, which is a good and a bad thing in my humble opinion. I am very good at adapting, which helps me to succeed, but I totally crack under pressure. I feel like luck has a lot to do with getting things done at the last minute, or when you are under a lot of pressure. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of luck. When I am working under pressure or at the last minute, even though I have the ability to do the assignment, I feel overwhelmed and start to get really bad anxiety and think that I will not be able to get it done in time so most of the time I decide not to do it, or I just do it half-hearted.

I believe that the goals in my course contract do reflect mastery and performance goals. These goals show that I am driven and want to be the best possible teacher that I can be. I want to help students learn and enable them to be open to learning for the rest of their lives. It doesn't matter to me if they like history, or want to learn about history for the rest of their lives, but I just want them to be willing to learn. It is important to be able to be willing to learn new things throughout your life so you can be trainable for jobs that you will have.

I have always been kind of scared to take this class because I heard that it is a lot of work and challenging. I need to get rid of these preconceptions and work as hard as I can to learn the material and be able to apply it in my life. Just because something is challenging doesn't mean that it is going to kill me. I should learn to accept these challenges because it will expand my mind and allow me to become a really great teacher. I am ready to accept the challenges that life throws at me and I will not back down just because I have heard something is really hard. Teaching high school is really hard, but I don't care. I still want to do it. In order to be a great teacher, I need to make it a habit to motivate myself so that I will be successful in motivating my students. Even though all my students will not necessarily have a dispositional interest in history, hopefully they can at least have a situational interest and be interested in at least one aspect of history or one event.

Course Contract

GOALS:

• become a better informed educator.
• to complete all assignments given in the course.
• to earn an A.

WEEKLY PREPARATION PLAN:

I use a planner to help stay organized. I have written in my planner when every assignment is due and have bookmarked the Ed Psych Calendar so that I can check it often to make sure that everything is completed for class each week. I have always been pretty good at managing my time and getting everything done. I don't like to be stressed out, so I always try to complete things well before they are due. I have noticed that when I try and do an assignment at 3am, it doesn't turn out very well and it is not my best work. I am blessed that I only work 4 hours a day, and it is a consistent schedule and will not interfere with school.

STUDY STRATEGIES:

I do best when I use flash cards to study the material. My plan is to memorize every study guide the night before it is due using flash cards. I plan to keep up in the class and get everything done before it is due. Like the website suggests, I will get enough sleep throughout the semester, eat right, and exercise, because this helps me focus. I will take really good notes throughout the semester and review them after every class session. This might sound stupid, but I have found that I do better on tests if I am chewing gum, so I plan to chew gum during the four tests. I also am planning to stay positive because that is when I do my best. I DO NOT do well when I am stressed out.

IF I DO NOT UNDERSTAND A TOPIC:

I plan to ask questions if I do not understand. I also plan to consult the book and other classmates if I feel that I need further explanation on a topic. Through trial and error, I have learned that I am most successful when I learn all that I can about a topic and then concentrate on what is important for me to know, or what I will be tested on. I do my best if I can read from the text and then put it into my own words. I have found that when you consult another classmate, they might not truly understand the material and explain a concept wrong. This is why I always like to check a dependable source, like the text, if I am confused.

I WILL REACH MY GOALS IN THIS COURSE BY...:

remembering why I am in this course--to become an educator. I need to learn everything that I can in school so I can be the best teacher possible. I will complete all my assignments and complete them accurately. I will be prepared for every class session and manage my time efficiently. I will not fall behind and stress myself out, because then my work will not be as good as it should be. I plan to study before every class session and know all the vocabulary given on the study guides. I also plan to do the reading and to know what I will be tested on so I can do well. I plan to sleep, eat, and stay active in order for my mind to function correctly. If I do not understand something, I plan to consult the text or ask a question in class.