Bylund Thurnher Classroom Assessment Literacy Plan 1

Kristin Bylund Thurnher Classroom Assessment Literacy Plan UNE EDU 741 Wallace Summer B 2012

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Classroom Assessment Literacy Plan Name of the assessment Formative or Summative Writing Journals This is a continuing formative assessment that students write in 2 to 3 times a week. Entries in the journal not only involve personal reflection of current topics such as holidays, world events, or what they did on the weekend, but also include responses to texts read in class and genre writing. SIS Writing Assessment This is the second year my school system has implemented a new writing curriculum that makes summative assessments 3 times a year. The Swiss system does not formally practice summative assessment that rank and categorize students to affect them personally positively or negatively, therefore this assessment was implemented to monitor the progress of student success at each of the schools in the system and therefore reflect teacher instruction as well as to create a set rubric that provides an equal way for teachers to measure student writing level. The SIS Writing Assessment examines both the surface features of student writing in the genres of personal experience, narrative, argument, explanation, and instructional writing, such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, and layout but also looks for deeper features such as audience awareness\purpose, content\ideas, structure\organization, and language. The writing sample required and submitted is based on the ability level of the student. Therefore each student is assessed on what is expected for their individual level. A writing sample is taken from the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and the end of the year. The Quality Inspector and the developer of the SIS Writing Curriculum visit every SIS school 3 times a year to review the samples and record and discuss the results with the teachers and principal. Again as the school is based on mixed ability classrooms, the success is based on the percent of individual improvement rate of the student. There is a clear rubric of what determines each level in the Swiss grading system of 16. As the schools in the system are small,

Data collected with this assessment

Timeline for reviewing and using this data to inform instruction

Journaling gives students the opportunity to draw a connection to the topic, analyze it, and express their opinion of it as well as experiment with genre writing. It gives them a sense of connection and freedom to their writing and they are encouraged to create personal meaning in their writing. These journals are reviewed to monitor student comprehension, writing, grammar, and spelling. The journals are reviewed after school on the days that students write in them. Class instruction is then planned and based on what challenges students exemplify in their writing. As students are on many different levels, it is very important to review this data to understand who needs to focus on what. Often the class is divided so some students work individually on a task and the teacher works one on one or in small groups to help

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How will this data be reported?

How will this data provide you with information to support the learning of your students?

students improve particular skills. The journals provide a fast way to inform and individualize instruction to ensure the success of every student. The data is reported to the students in brief Friday meetings to discuss student writing, where the teacher notes something positive, something the student must focus on, and what the final learning goal is. This gives students a clear understanding of what they need to work on. This data is also used to explain student progress and challenges in parent teacher meetings. Often the principal makes a surprise visit to the class and glances at the journals as well. However, as the data is formative, students are only graded on completion. Again these journals provide quick ways to understand student strengths and weaknesses. The class is highly diverse and many levels of ability exist. It is essential to review the journals to understand exactly what a student must focus on learning and what they have mastered. This data allows me to differentiate the class and work one on one or in small groups to reinforce a skill. Pair learning partners can be created to so a high level student works on skills with a low level student. Also learning stations in the classroom can be created based on this information. In such a diverse ability classroom the journals provide data to encourage a system where students are all learning at their ability but stay challenged while

the success rate of the school is then immediately declared by the Quality Inspector and Curriculum developer.

The data from the individual school is then contrasted to other schools in the system. These results are presented and discussed at meetings for the SIS principals and then reported back to the teachers. We are given an idea of what schools are doing well but it is not discussed in Staff Development meetings involving the entire school system to discourage competition and encourage everyone in the system to learn the new Writing Curriculum and ensure student success.

The results of this assessment allow us to categorize student writing level, identify student needs, plan, give feedback that encourages student progress and achievement, set clear goals, and give us appropriate information to report to parents. Although these results provide teachers with similar information to formative assessment in the writing journals, this information is used by the SIS school system to see which schools are fostering progress and which schools are not. The results of the tests do not affect the student, but rather the purpose of this assessment is to find a common method to monitor student growth for the entire SIS system in order to determine which schools are creating successful readers and writers and which are not. The schools with low success rates receive further professional development.

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How does this assessment support differentiation?

not being overwhelmed. The assessment supports differentiation by basing the results on the individuals improvement rather than how they stand in comparison to the class. This is the only way that my school can operate because it is such a mixed ability group.

This assessment is based on the individual student. As all language classes contain mixed ability students, results are examined based on the individual student and the individual student success rate is used to monitor which schools have a high rate of student success and which do not. This encourages those schools and teachers that are successful and provides more professional development to those that are not. It supports differentiation because each student is looked upon as an individual and their progress is monitored. While the results progress the teacher and the school, it is the teacher who selects each of the writing samples and is well versed in the rubric level standards, therefore the results of who is improving and who is not is not a surprise. The results are rather immediate and teachers can also use the results to continue differentiate and guide the student to writing success.

Reflection This template allowed me to consider how my school assesses writing both in a formative and summative manner and form the opinion that both assessments that it practices play an important and positive role in individual student and overall school success. As my school is a private international school and part of a group of schools called Swiss International School in Switzerland, Germany, and Brazil, our students have highly diverse language abilities. The school is mostly for mobile students who may stay in the area for a year or two for their parents work and enter the system at varying levels of English and German. As every student is at a different level, the English classroom is highly differentiated and progress is based on the individual. Both forms of assessment I use in the template cater to this individualism and work on providing the student with individualized instruction and further support the teacher and school to learn to how to best do this. Although I do not teach writing at my school, I substituted for the writing teacher quite frequently last year and observed how students use their writing journals and have had to organize instructional activities based on my observations in them. It is my schools second year

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implementing the new Swiss International School Writing Curriculum and using this 3 time a year assessment. The results of the new SIS system wide assessment have no negative or positive effect on the students standing, other than providing the teacher with information about the students strengths and challenges, but they are used to monitor the success rate of the teacher and the school and to provide the entire SIS system with a common method to grade and monitor writing progress. Although I attended many professional development days regarding this assessment it wasnt until writing this plan that I realized how important it is. Rather than having a detrimental or positive effect on the student the new assessment plan gives an idea of how well the student is improving from where they were and provides support to teachers and schools whose students have a low improvement rate. The new writing curriculum also clearly defines what constitutes as what level of writing. This was a problem before as our school consists of many international teachers from a variety of backgrounds who were previously grading without system standard criteria. This provides us with an even plane to grade. While the journals provide a quick and informal way to determine the individual students strengths and challenges, the SIS Writing Assessment exhibits the success rate of the student and school. This upcoming school year will be the second official year of this curriculum and assessment. So far after completing this assignment I only see it as positive and when used in congruence with the formative assessment can only have a constructive outcome.