Running head: ASSESS TO IMPRESS 1

Assess to Impress: An Inquiry into the use of Assessments to Better Meet the Needs of
Students

Kristen Houlihan

University of South Florida

ASSESS TO IMPRESS 2

Background

In my internship experiences, I have been in both a first and a fourth-grade classroom.

Both internships were completed in different schools in Hillsborough County. Continuing with

my Final Internship, I am staying in the same school that I completed my Level III internship

in, this time in a second-grade classroom. This school is a Title 1 school, which has a

specialized program for deaf, hard of hearing, and blind students. The students in this school

are integrated, and it is not uncommon to see many students with differing exceptionalities in

one classroom. My final internship classroom consists of 18 students: 8 girls and 10 boys.

These students are high-performing students and were placed in the classroom because of their

similar abilities. This inquiry also speaks about an RTI intervention group that I taught during

my time as a final intern. This group consists of about 20 students that all needed to receive

enrichment; these students all had extremely high reading scores and needed to be challenged

during this intervention time three times a week.

Throughout my internship experiences, even though the age ranges were vastly

different, there was one thing that occurred in all of the classrooms: assessments. This word

used to scare me before I joined the College of Education. I saw assessments as a huge test or

something that was state-mandated. Throughout my years in the Education Program, I found

that assessments were not as scary as they seemed. I learned that there are many different types

of assessments, and sometimes the students are not even aware that they are being assessed!

During my time as an intern, I learned about formative assessments and became interested in

knowing more. I loved that a teacher could use formative assessments to help students in the

middle of a lesson, and that they could be used to drive future instruction.
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One of my personal beliefs is that teachers should do everything in their power to help

the students inside of their classroom. Formative assessments are a great way to do this.

Formatives are a tool that a teacher can use to help the students amid a lesson, and can also be

used when planning for future lessons. Another belief that I have is that a teacher should be

fully present during a lesson. Formative assessments are another way an educator can engage

with students throughout a lesson such as during independent work, experimenting, or even

reading passages. A teacher can utilize the time in a lesson wisely by implementing different

formative assessments throughout the lesson.

I had the opportunity to try and implement a couple of formative assessments

throughout my internship experiences, but I found it difficult to remember to do while a lesson

was happening. I would take notes in my head, and then forget to write them down. This came

to be a problem because throughout the day I would not remember which students were

struggling with the concepts and I was unable to help them to the best of my ability. In terms

of summative assessments, throughout my internships I always saw students struggling when it

came time to take a test. Students would seem to understand the content throughout the week

that I taught it, but would not perform at the end of the unit. For this reason, I chose to focus

on assessments as the purpose for this inquiry.

Purpose

As stated before, my forgetfulness when it came to formative assessments was the main

reason for my interest in this topic. I wanted to find assessments that were quick and easy to

do, and that I would be able to remember to implement throughout my lessons. In completing

my connected lesson during my Level III internship, I used the assessments of my choosing to

drive the instruction of two back-to-back lessons. After doing this, I saw the improvement in

my students performances after implementing different types of assessments. Therefore, the

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purpose of my inquiry was to learn about different assessments that I could administer

throughout the duration of a lesson or unit.

Wondering

With this purpose I wondered: How can I use assessments to better meet the needs of

my students?

Methods/Procedures

To gain insight into my wondering, I started with getting to know the students in my

classroom. Since this was a new classroom environment, I started with a student interest

survey (Appendix A) to figure out what my students liked best about school. This survey

yielded many results. I found out that many of my students would like to receive more help in

Writing. Most of my students also stated that they enjoyed school. The results from this

student interest survey show that generally my students have a positive attitude about school

and seem to enjoy the different subjects that they participate in throughout the day (Appendix

B). During this same week, I distributed a How do I Work Best survey to my students

(Appendix C). This survey was administered to find out the conditions in which students felt

the most comfortable. From this survey, I found that most of my students enjoy working

around the room, and that many of my students enjoy working with other students in groups

(Appendix D).

The next step into exploring my wondering was to conduct research in the form of

literature. In researching my inquiry topic, I came across five articles that spoke about my

inquiry in different ways (Appendix E). Most, if not all, of the articles mentioned the need to

constantly assess students. All the authors agreed that using one high stakes test to determine

student ability was not enough. Many of the authors suggested formatively assessing students

in the middle of a lesson, and constantly monitoring student progress. A few of the articles
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spoke of having students self-assess themselves. Lee and Abell state people learn science

better if they are metacognitive about their learning-when they recognize what they know and

do not know and decide what they need to learn (Lee & Abell). A couple of the articles talked

about setting goals, both for yourself as the teacher and for your students. Curry, Mwavita,

Holter, and Harris state the practice of consistent goal setting and goal revision not only

motivated teachers but also helped the student accept some ownership of learning goals and

encouraged students to become actively involved in setting increasingly challenging goals

(Curry, Mwavita, Holter, & Harris, 2015). In my research process, I saw that formative

assessments were spoken about in all subject areas. Lee and Abell state formative assessment

is used to gain information and advances in student learning (Lee & Abell). Prompt, specific,

and constructive feedback was suggested in a few of the articles as well. Assessing Student

Understanding: A Framework for Testing and Teaching spoke about the importance of

constructive feedback. This article encouraged teachers to take a look into the how much

feedback they are giving their students. It states If a student makes an error, teachers must

discern the severity of the error and what caused the incorrect response (Brendefur, Strother,

Rich, & Appleton, 2016). In reading these articles, I learned about different strategies to

implement into my internship classroom.

Based off these articles, the first thing that I decided to do was to hone in on one subject

area to start with. Since many of my students said that they would like to receive help in

Writing in their Student Interest Survey, I started there. The first step that I took in taking over

the writing block was to provide students with specific feedback throughout the students unit

on letter writing. Students received oral and written feedback throughout the writing process.

Throughout this unit, I saw the students writing improve. I also saw the students editing their

work based off the feedback that was given to them.

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The next step in my inquiry process was to introduce a system in which to assess the

students with. Throughout a PLC group in my Teacher as Researcher class, I learned about the

CHAMPS rubric from one of my peers (Appendix F). This system was introduced and

implemented into my classroom over the course of a few weeks. I started using this rubric

specifically with Writing, and then distributed it into the other subject areas that I was teaching.

The first step that I used to introduce the CHAMPS model into the classroom was

grading the students on their writing using the rubric and then talking about the criteria that I

was looking for after the students received their writing back. In doing this I saw that the

students did not seem to understand why they got the score that they did, and most were upset

with the scores that they received. I realized that feedback throughout the writing and scoring

with a rubric was not enough.

The next step I took with the CHAMPS model was going over the rubric that the

students were going to be assessed with before the students started with their assignment. This

rubric was also displayed at the front of the room so that students could reference it throughout

the assignment. I saw that in doing this students scores improved, but there were still some

that were struggling to receive passing scores. These students were also constantly asking for

my approval on the assignment and were not taking the time to edit and self-assess their work

before turning it in.

The last step that I took with the CHAMPS model was working with the students to

come up with the rubric for an assignment together. I went over the details of the assignment

with the students and then we worked together to come up with the rubric for the assignment.

In asking questions such as What would purple work look like? students came up with the

criteria for the rubric. I then displayed this rubric on the projector so that students could

reference it throughout the assignment. In doing these steps, I saw that students were self-
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assessing themselves and using the rubric to edit their work. I also saw students scores

improve and a majority of the students were receiving passing scores.

After finding a system that worked across all subject areas for assessing my students, I

decided to implement some of the things that the students talked about in their How Do I Work

Best survey. In the formative and summative assessments for the next week, I decided to

implement some of the things that students stated that they liked into my classroom instruction.

The students were working in groups more often, and participating in classroom discussions

more, as opposed to completing written assignments independently. Throughout the times that

students were working in groups, I made sure to walk around and take anecdotal notes and

provide specific feedback to help facilitate discussion. I also decided to let students work

around the room for all their reading and writing assignments. During the formative and

summative assessments during these subjects, students could take a clipboard and sit in various

spots around the room. In doing this I saw that assessment scores were about the same, but in

conversations that I had with students, they stated that they felt more comfortable working

around the room.

With the students in the PRIDE (RTI) group that I was teaching, there were many

strategies that were implemented with them. Within the first week of establishing this PRIDE

group, we started with asking students to mane different things that they would be interested in

learning more about. We also gave the students a Student Interest Survey (Appendix G), to

learn more about who they are as learners.

It was a gradual release with the project-based learning with these students. The first

project that the students completed was assigned by the other intern and I, students had no

choice on their partners or their topic that they could research. We did this so that students

could learn how to use the computers, find books on their topic, and get to know students
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within the PRIDE group. For the second project that the students completed, the other intern

and I placed the students into groups and gave them a topic off the list they had made at the

beginning of the semester. For the third project, students could sign up for a group based on

things that they had written about in their Student Interest Survey. Students could also choose

whether to present with a PowerPoint or a poster. Students had a choice between a pre-selected

list, and we did not limit the amount of people that could research each topic. For the fourth

and final project, students had free choice on: who their partners were, what they were

researching, and how they would present the information. Throughout this whole process, we

provided students with rubrics (Appendix H) so that they knew their expectations when

completing each project.

While collecting all of the data for this inquiry, I put all worksheets, printed pictures,

survey results, graphs, charts, observations, and lesson plans into a notebook. All handouts

were stapled, and all observations, checklists, and written formative assessments were written

into this notebook. When it came time to analyze the data, I went through this notebook and

pulled out the pages that had the most relevant and impactful data. After doing this, I looked at

and put the data that correlated with each other in piles. I then used these data piles to

formulate my findings and learning statements.

Findings

After implementing the different internventions in my classroom and analyzing the data

that I collected throughout the process, I was able to find out a lot about myself, my students,

and my inquiry topic. Analyzing and sorting my data has led to the following learning claims:

Learning Statement 1

My students benefit from a familiarized rubric system that they helped create the criteria for.
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By scaffolding the process in which the CHAMPS rubric was implemented in the

classroom, I saw a growth in student performance across all subject areas. This system allowed

for my students to hold themselves accountable, and also showed them why they received the

scores that they did. Students became familiarized with the rubric over the course of my time

in the classroom, and once the students started creating the criteria for the rubric, they became

even more comfortable with it. For example, my students came up with Purple work should

always have capitals and periods, and Purple writing should have lots of detail. Students

Writing scores especially increased during this time. Here is a chart explaining students scores

based on this rubric over the four weeks that it was implemented.

Self-assessment using this rubric helped students become accountable for their work.

Students were also made aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. To help with the self-

assessment process, I provided students with their own generalized rubric for writing.
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This allowed students to self-assess their work before they gave it to me to be graded.

Students were also provided for individualized assignment rubrics during all lessons that I

taught. They used these rubrics to grade their own work and the work of their peers.

Many individual conferences needed to be held in order for students to get to the point

where they were accurately and critically looking at their own work. Working one-on-one with

the students let me know not only where they were struggling with a concept, but also where

their thinking was at when they were self-assessing. In addition, it allowed for individual goal

setting to take place. The students were able to identify the areas in which they were struggling

and set goals based on what they felt they needed to work on. For example, one of my students

stated that she needed to work on making her work make sense. I provided her with different

strategies for proofreading and editing her paper, such as whisper reading her writing out

loud and asking yourself does this make sense?

The authors of Getting Assessment Right at the Classroom Level: Using Formative

Assessment for Decision Making state that during their research helped the student accept

some ownership of learning goals and encouraged students to become actively involved in
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setting increasingly challenging goals (Curry, Mwavita, Holter, & Harris, 2015). This is

exactly what I saw in my classroom. Students would originally have a goal such as correct

punctuation and would then lead to provided descriptive words and detailed sentences.

Students were continuously perfecting their craft with the help provided through individual

conferencing and individual goal setting.

Learning Statement 2

As a teacher, I discovered the many benefits from using a variety of formatives with my

students.

Formative assessments provided the opportunities for students to show what they knew

about a particular concept. Formative assessments were administered throughout every lesson,

which let me know which students were struggling with the concept, what needed to be re-

taught, and the next steps for a lesson. In a week of lesson plans (Appendix I), I used many

different formative assessments to gauge a lesson. Roskos and Neuman state Formative

assessment is a gap-minder because it helps the teacher to stay alert to gaps in individual

students' reading development and to adjust instruction as needed before moving on (to the

train, which, as we know, is leaving the station) (Roskos & Neuman, 2012). In completing

this inquiry, I learned that my students needed to be provided with multiple ways to show that

they understood a concept before they were formally tested on it.

Students mostly did not know that the work that they were doing was an assessment.

Classroom conversations, worksheets, informal observations, and checklists were all used to

understand where students were at during a lesson. In using these different formative

assessments, I was able to then pull small groups if needed to work with kids on where they

needed help. I was also able to partner students up with different understanding levels.

Students that understood the content could then work with those who were struggling. These
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groupings would not have been made without the various formative assessments that I

administered to my students. Stover, Yearta, and Hams state Formative assessment allows

teachers to adjust instruction to meet the wide variety of student needs (Stover, Yearta, &

Harris, 2015). Being able to adjust my instruction as needed was key to meeting the needs of

all of the students in my internship classroom.

Learning Statement 3

Differentiated assessments led to an increase in student motivation and achievement in my

classroom.

One of the main things that a teacher discovers is that all of their students learn

differently. Differentiated instruction is something that is continuously talked about in the

College of Education, and for as long as I have been in the program I have been told of the

importance of adjusting instruction to fit the differing needs of the classroom. The same goes

with assessments; every student should have the opportunity to show that they mastered a

concept in a way that works the best for them. Some students do not perform well when it

comes to tests, which is why they should be provided with other opportunities to demonstrate

knowledge of a concept.

One case that sticks out in my mind when it comes to differentiated assessments is of

one of my students Clyde (pseudonym). He was struggling when it came to writing his thought

on a piece of paper. After some probing, I learned that he had difficulty writing in the lines and

that his lack of spelling knowledge caused him to be self-conscious of writing on a piece of

paper. After seeing this, my CT and I decided to change the way that he submitted and worked

on assignments in class. We decided to try to have him complete assignments on the computer.

I taught him how to use things like the shift key to make capital letters and how to right click

on a word if it had a red line underneath it. He excelled once he was behind the computer.
ASSESS TO IMPRESS 13

Work was actually getting completed and he was turning in work that was above and beyond

according to the rubric. In this example of his work (Appendix J), you can tell by his poem that

he understands the unit that we were working on, even though he had a different way of

completing his work.

With the students in my PRIDE group, they were continuously having choice in how

they demonstrated how they understood a concept. Every student was graded using the same

rubric, but the means in which they both presented the material and the topics that they

presented on were chosen by the student. In giving students this choice and providing a set

rubric with their expectations on it, we were able to hold students accountable for their work.

Students were excited about being able to research a topic that they wanted to learn about, and

the work that they were putting forward showed that they were absorbing the material that they

were researching. As can be seen from the Project Survey results (Appendix K) , most of the

students stated that they enjoyed coming to PRIDE time. The students work (Appendix L) and

rubric results (Appendix M) show that they had an accurate understanding of both their

expectations and the material that they were learning about.

Conclusion

FEAP 4 in our Florida Educational Accomplished Practices is all about using

assessments to guide practice. One of my personal and professional goals is to not only

complete each of my FEAPS, but to continue to meet these practices throughout my final

internship and my teaching career. The studying of this concept will ensure that I continue to

meet my personal and professional goals.

In completing this inquiry I learned many things about my students and of myself as a

teacher. I learned that my students benefitted from having and utilizing a rubric system that

spanned across all subject areas and assignments. I also found that my students self-assessing
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with this rubric with the tools and strategies provided during individual conferences lead to

students understanding of strengths and weaknesses. Formative assessments were vital in

driving present and future instruction in my classroom. I also learned that my students

benefitted from differentiated assessments in terms of the process that they demonstrated their

knowledge with, and the product in which they presented their understanding with.

This inquiry answered many questions that I had about assessments, but it also brought

about even more questions and wonderings. These wonderings include What types of

formative assessments yield the best results for both teacher and student?, What tools and

strategies help students to have the most critical and accurate self-assessments?, and What

tools and strategies help to provide students with the most room to succeed on tests and

standardized assessments?. The continued study and research of this topic will help to answer

some of these additional wonderings and questions.

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References

Brendefur, J. L., Strother, S., Rich, K., & Appleton, S. (2016). Assessing Student

Understanding: A Framework for Testing and Teaching. Teaching Children

Mathematics, 23(3), 174. doi:10.5951/teacchilmath.23.3.0174

Curry, K. A., Mwavita, M., Holter, A., & Harris, E. (2015). Getting assessment

right at the classroom level: using formative assessment for decision making.

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 28(1), 89-104.

doi:10.1007/s11092-015-9226-5

Lee, M. H., & Abell, S. K. (n.d.). Perspectives: Assessing for Science Learning. NSTA.

Retrieved fromhttp://learningcenter.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/sc07_044_07_66

Roskos, K., & Neuman, S. B. (2012). Formative Assessment: Simply, No Additives.

The Reading Teacher, 65(8), 534-538. doi:10.1002/trtr.01079

Stover, K., Yearta, L., & Harris, C. (2015). Formative Assessment in the Digital Age.

The Reading Teacher, 69(4), 377-381. doi:10.1002/trtr.1420

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Appendix A

Appendix B
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Appendix C

Appendix D
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Appendix E

Article
Assessing for Science Learning.
By: Michele H. Lee and Sandra
K. Abell
Key Quotes and Ideas Related
to my Wondering
In contrast, formative
assessment is used to gain
information that improves
instruction and advances
student learning.
According to cognitive
scientists, people learn science
better if they are metacognitive
about their learning {NRC
2005)-when they recognize
what they know and do not
know and decide what they
need to learn.
Ideas for Taking Action in my
Classroom
After reading this article, I
would like to make it a habit to
provide students with feedback
during and after a lesson. This
will help students to become
aware of their own strengths
and weaknesses so that they
can work to becoming
responsible for their own
learning.

Teacher feedback can help

Formative Assessment: Simply,
No Additives
By: Kathleen Roskos and Susam
B. Neuman
students to be aware of their
own strengths and weaknesses.
It involves making judgments
about the quality of student
responses (performances;
student work) and using those
judgments immediately
(midstream in instruction) to
guide and improve students'
understandings and skills
(Sadler, 1989).
Questioning, feeding-back
critical information, sharing
success criteria and supporting
self-assessment skills are all
strategies that can be used as
formative assessments.
I will try to use some of these
skills in the classroom

Formative assessment is a gap-

Formative Assessment in the
Digital Age.
By: Katie Stover, Lindsay Yearta,
and Caroline Hams
minder because it helps the
teacher to stay alert to gaps in
individual students' reading
development and to adjust
instruction as needed before
moving on (to the train, which,
as we know, is leaving the
station).
Formative assessment allows I will work on incorporating
teachers to adjust instruction to technology into my
meet the wide variety of student assessments. i.e. using Plickers,
needs. Purposeful, collaborative, having the students making
and dynamic assessment PowerPoints, etc.
(International Reading
Association [IRA], 2013)
ASSESS TO IMPRESS
Assessing Student
Understanding: A framework for
Testing and Teaching
BY: Jonathan L. Brendefur, Sam
Strother, Kelli Rich, and Sarah
Appleton
Getting Assessment Right at the
Classroom Level: Using
Formative Assessment for
Decision Making
By: Katherine A. Curry,
Mwarumba Mwavita, Alexander
Holter, and Ed Harris
19
provides feedback to both
teachers and students to
support continuous growth.
The online space made it easier
for students to regularly connect
with their peers and with a
wider audience
If a student makes an error, Using the framework to form
teachers must discern the groupings during a lesson.
severity of the error and what
caused the incorrect response. Using the framework to
Was it a small computational differentiate during a lesson.
error? Did the student misread
the question or not understand
what was being asked in class?
Or is there a deeply held
misconception that will make
learning all future related
content very difficult without
some type of remediation?
For teachers, the framework is
helpful specifically because it
allows them to assess student
learning on the same content at
these different
levels
Teachers stated that a benefit Constantly assessing students
of this non-threatening, before, during, and after a
transparent approach to data lesson.
use was that it encouraged
teachers to continually evaluate
their own instructional practices
and adjust those practices to Working with the students to
more closely meet student set individual goals for each
needs. Teachers described their subject area
practice as reflective teaching
and emphasized that, as
teachers in this district gain
expertise in data generation and
interpretation, they learn to
more effectively utilize data to
adjust teaching practices to
meet student needs.
The practice of consistent goal
setting and goal revision not
only motivated teachers but it
ASSESS TO IMPRESS 20

also helped the student accept

some ownership of learning
goals and encouraged students
to become actively involved in
setting increasingly challenging
goals.
Appendix F
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Appendix G

Appendix H
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Appendix I

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Frid

COMPUTER Students will be able Students will be Students will be Students will
Objective/EQ

LAB to: able to: able to: Compare and contrast t

Identify the sequencing Understand the Identify what
of a story central message of characters say and
a story do throughout a
story
LAFS.2.RL.1.2 LAFS.2.RL.1.2 LAFS.2.RL.1.2 LAFS.2.
Standard

LAFs.RL.2.5 LAFS.RL.2.5 LAFS.2.RL.1.3 LAFS.2.

LAFS.2.RL.3.7 LAFS.2.RL.3.7 LAFS.2.RL.2.5 LAFS.2.
LAFS.2.L.2.3 LAFS.2.L.2.3 LAFS.2.RL.3.7 LAFS.2.
LAFS.2.SL.1.1 LAFS.2.
Introduce the Story: Go over the main Introduce the text: Introduce
Warm Up

Luke Goes to Bat points of the story The Lion and the The Lion and the Mouse: A
(T124-T135) with the students Mouse (MyO
(T364-T365)
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Read the Story out loud Ask: Ask: Ask

with the students #1, #3, #5, #7, #11, In the first the lion Pg 9: What does the word
#13, #15 grabbed the mouse does the author use this w
Ask: and flung it. What yaw
#1, #3, #5, #7, #11, #13, does this tell you
#15 Once questions are about the lion? Pg 11: Why does the mous
asked, students will king of the forest? What
Once the story is be doing a written Paragraph 3: The mea
complete, introduce response to this lion laughs and says
the sequencing text story. the mouse is Pg 17: Why does the mous
graphic organizer with funny. Why? tim
the students (organizer Prompt:
located in my TPT Using text Paragraph 5: What Pg 19: What do we learn ab
store) evidence, what is did the author mean the mouse to
the central by He (lion) roared
Students can work message of the with all his might? Pg 24: What lesson can be
around the room and story?
Procedures

with a partner to Paragraph 6: What We will be creating a venn d

complete the They will be writing did the author mean text
worksheet. this into their by I, (mouse) will
reading notebooks. get you out in no Students will then be doing
They will glue this time on the two
worksheet into their Prompt: Compare and Co
reading notebook Pg 338: What does versions of the lion and th
the illustration tell stories alike and how
us that the words do
not?

What lesson can be

learned by this
fable?

Students will then

be completing the
graphic organizer of
what each character
says and does in the
text
Once students have Once students Once students have Once students have comp
finished, they can work have completed, completed, they can their writing
Closure

on their writing from they can work on work on their

earlier their writing from writing from earlier
earlier
Completed sequencing Completed writing Classroom Completed w
Assessme

worksheet piece discussion Class disc

nt

Classroom discussion Class discussions Completed graphic

organizer
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Appendix J

Appendix K
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Appendix L

Appendix M
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