Formative & Summative Assessment

Formative & summative assessments are regularly used in the classroom; formative assessments being given through the learning process which helps determine if students are understanding material and meeting goals. Summative assessments are commonly given at the end of a unit, semester, or year to see if students have mastered material. Formative assessments could include observing student work during individual or small group discussions, activities, homework, projects and quizzes; summative assessments could include projects, quizzes, and tests. An example of a formative assessment I observed during class was our daily warm-up, which students do at the beginning of class to assess material covered the day before. The particular day I observed this warm up students wrote down initially on paper the answer to the two questions and then if they had time, they could answer the challenge questions to each problem. Once students were overall finished, the teacher instructed students to share their thoughts about the challenge questions with one another, while the teacher walked around listening to pairs, sometimes talking with them when needed. Then after understanding where students were at, then proceeded to discuss with the class about the answer to the challenge questions, and after going over the problems, the teacher again asked partners to talk about the process the challenge problem brought up. An example of a summative assessment I observed another day was a unit test that assessed all material from the previous unit. This test took the duration of the 50 minute class.

When talking with my coordinating teacher, he mentioned the ways to assess student understanding with formal methods which includes tests, quizzes, homework assignments, and exit tickets and informal methods which includes constantly checking in with students, having students talk to each other, and listening during these times. Some examples of formative in-the-moment assessments the cooperating teacher uses is having kids summarize an idea or topic or procedure. This is used in-the-moment to check-in with students, especially when there is a lot of information given. From this, the teacher uses the feedback to guide where they go next, helping them get a good sense whether we can move on or need to review the material more. Sometimes the teacher may not be able to address this immediately, but may be used in planning/changing the next day’s lesson.  The summative assessment they use is tests, even though sometimes it feels as a formative assessment as well. One specific test that leans more towards summative is the MAPS Growth Test which tracks growth and gives data on how students are doing. This assessment also helps determine where students should be placed for their math class.

Based on my observation and interview, I’m very favorable towards formative assessments, especially in my first years of teaching because it will help assess how students understand what I’m teaching, and I can make adjustments according to these assessments. I definitely want to use the more in-the-moment assessments when needed to have this same goal to get an idea how students understand material. I still plan to use summative assessments, but use them appropriately and when needed because I think they are necessary to assess if students have mastered material, but I also think formative assessments help the learning process. 

Task Orientation of Students

For a class period we observed the class and kept track of when students were on-task versus off-task and found the following data:

On this particular day there were 25 students in class, and at the beginning of class 24 out of the 25, being 96% of the class were on-task, ready to start class. It took only a minute or two before the whole class was prepared and ready to start the activity for the day, but as seen by the data, the whole class (100% of class) wasn’t recorded to be all on-task until 15 minutes into the class, this being the most attentive time in class. This was when the whole class was working on a problem given by the activity we were working on. The least attentive point in class was at 1:57, so 45 minutes into class, where only 21 out of the 25 students, being 84% of the class was on-task, working on the problem given by the activity.

I noticed most students were on-task this particular day throughout the whole class time. I also noticed most students were on-task towards the beginning of class, but towards the end of the class time, more students gradually were off-task. The students may have taken a second to become on-task at the beginning of class from the transition of passing period of getting settled in their seat, but the expectation in the class is that once the bell rings, students are in their seats working on the warm-up and silent. The lesson today was an engaging activity with watching videos and using information from the videos to complete problems. This engaging activity was most likely the reason for students being engaged throughout the class. The small amount of students’ off-task towards the end of class may be due to students getting bored of the activity, or preparing for the transition of leaving class. The increase of students’ on-task before leaving class is due to another expectation in the classroom, being that students are seated and packed up before being dismissed from the classroom. These expectations and resulting behaviors are large influences on students’ on-task versus off-task behavior because these well-established expectations from the beginning of the year helps students know how they should be acting and what they should be doing during class time, with some reminders when needed of these expectations.

The students today surprised me with how on-task most of them were throughout the whole class period because the day before many were very off-task, as the lesson wasn’t very engaging as the lesson this day was. This idea is one way to encourage on-task behavior, lessons that are more engaging keeps students’ on-task and allows students to have a bit more fun with the material. Another strategy that helps students stay on-task and will help achieve my goals in the classroom is setting very structured expectations for the class such as expectations of what to do when they’re working in groups versus partners versus individually, and what students should be doing when they arrive to class & how they show they are ready to leave class. Overall I think these expectations/management of the classroom, combined with engaging lessons/activities help students stay on-task and engaged overall.

Classroom Climate & Management

Students in the classroom are well managed and have a somewhat respectful relationship with one another. It’s relatively positive environment and each student seems to be friendly with one another. Along with this environment, the students have a respectful relationship with teacher; one where students feel comfortable in the classroom to be themselves, but also respecting the teacher when he asks to students to be quiet, or with disciplinary actions. It is very clear the amount of respect the teacher has for the students by how they talk in a stern, yet caring tone. The care the teacher has for the students is clear as well through the teacher checking in with students during class and having those one-on-one conversations when needed. I think through this care and respect modeled through the teacher, the students have often reciprocated that care and respect.

Through observing the classroom, I’ve observed various classroom norms and routines such as signals for quieting down with voicing “3, 2, 1” with an expectation of the class being silent once the teacher says one. Another norm is each student at the beginning of the semester was given a job in which they are responsible for over the year. This is seen through routines such as one of the students passing out folders at the beginning of class, and another student collects the folders at the end of class. Another routine I observed was at the beginning of class is that the students start on the warm-up and when the teacher enters the classroom, all students will be silent. Some of these are enforced by points and others are enforced by the teacher by reminding the students of his expectations. This is somewhat related to rules of the classroom of being respectful and following instructions. The disciplinary system is somewhat unclear since the classroom I am in hasn’t had too many issues in this area.

When interviewing my cooperating teacher we acknowledged these norms and routines I had observed in the classroom, and mentioned earlier. One they emphasized was having students having jobs that they are responsible for. He said it really helps with completing small tasks such as passing or collecting papers, and transition times are decreased as well because the teacher can focus on the next item in the agenda. These jobs and norms are established during the first week of class, where the teacher doesn’t do any math material each class, but instead focuses each day around procedures in the classroom such as the “3, 2, 1” routine. These procedures are displayed through modeling and reminding, which is also how they are enforced.

My cooperating teacher talked about their management in the classroom and the use of PBS, otherwise known as Positive Behavior Support, which is used throughout the school. They also mentioned getting to know your students helps with management; that care and respect for one another creates a safe and effective classroom environment. Some management problems my teacher has run into has been “letting things slide” because they were more focused on having a relationship with the students. Management is something that’s hard for teachers like this because it they can “get walked all over.” Their advice was to establish a genuine relationship with your students, and then you have the authority to take disciplinary action when needed, without worry of completely damaging the relationship.

Based on observation and the interview with my cooperating teacher, I would hope to have a classroom environment where I can form genuine relationships with the students, but have students respect me. One thing I would use from my cooperating teacher is spend a good amount of time establishing classroom norms and routines. Creating this clear imagine of how your classroom will run will help  I think my future classroom achieve its goals.