Week Seven! Summary

This week I thought the articles, Building on the Common Core, The Many Meanings of “Multiple Measures”, Data-Driven Decision Making and Assessment-Driven Improvements in Middle School Students’ Writing did a great job of making the overwhelming task of assessment seem manageable.  Being a physical educator, I am expected to assess my students on the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains.  Only seeing these students sometimes once a week makes this task seems unrealistic.  During my internship I had as many as 75 1^st graders in my gymnasium at one time.  I tried my hardest to assess my students in each domain but it was difficult.  It took me almost my whole internship but by the end I was able to assess all of my students in each domain, but it was no easy task!  These articles give me hope that assessment is possible and there are effective ways of helping our students learn.

As some students struggle with dividing fractions, other students struggle with learning to kick a ball.  How can I expect to give a student a grade for physical education class just based on if they are able to complete a skill or not.  “In educational settings, a decision or characterization that will have major impact on a student should not be made on the basis of a single test score.  Other relevant information should be taken into account if it will enhance the overall validity of the decision” (Brookhart, 2009, p. 247).  When assessing my students during my internship I took into account not only their performance of the skill but their ability to understand the skill and their behavior.  I would ask my younger students to circle the correct form for kicking a soccer ball to make sure that if they were unable to complete the task they still understood the proper technique.  I had my older students do a little more writing.  They would be asked to list five key elements to kicking a soccer ball.  I was amazed to see how much they listened and understood the material.

 

 As far as assessing my students in the affective domain I used a lot of peer and self-assessments.  “Peer and self-assessments are key elements in formative assessment, because they involve students in thinking about the quality of their own and each others’ work, rather than relying on their teachers as the sole source of evaluative judgment” (Andrade et al, 2009, p. 269).  Having a lot of students in my gymnasium at one time led me to develop a lot of group activities.  At the end of my classes I left time for my students to fill out an assessment sheet about how well their group worked together as well as how well they personally worked within the group.  My younger students would be asked to draw smiley faces while my older students either used a rating system or wrote out a few sentences.  It was great to see how my students thought they were doing.  They took this assessment very seriously and I saw an improvement in their behavior while working in their groups. It was also a great way for them to share any issues with me that they might have not wanted to talk about during class.     

These assessments took a great deal of time to come up with and it was a lot of trail and error but It was worth it all to know that my students were understanding what I was teaching them.  It made me feel like it wasn’t just a gym class, it was a physical education class and they would be able to take the information with them and use it at another time in their life.

Assessing our students is a key part of their education.  It is up to the teachers to make sure their students understand the material that is being presented.  If teachers do not take the time to make effective assessments they are wasting their time even teaching the lesson.  When I develop my lesson plans it is with the purpose to teach my students new information that they can use later on in life.  If I do not check for their understanding and show them the importance of the material why would they remember the information?  One of my proudest moments thus far in my very short teaching career was when I got a phone call from one my student’s parents telling me their daughter came home from school and gave their family a lesson on how to throw the proper way.  I was overwhelmed with joy that this 2^nd grader was able to remember the skills we had worked on during our throwing and catching unit.  It made all the sweat and tears of planning lessons and assessments worth it.

This course has allowed me to get a better understanding of how much time, effort and thought goes into developing an effective classroom.  Teaching is not just about being prepared for the day.  It is about taking our students education to the next level and really understanding how we can make sure we are reaching our students and giving them the best opportunity to succeed.   

As our class comes to an end I also want to speak about some theories, theorist and my overall experience with this course.  Having the chance to learn about famous educational theories and theorists and relating them to my own experiences was extremely helpful and eye opening.  It is hard to believe that these theorist ideas, which were developed many years, are still shaping how we are educating our youth today. Although I find each theorist and their theories to be extremely important to the education world a couple stick out to me as the most influential in education as well as relate to my beliefs on education.  Even though I am a recent graduate and have not found a teaching job yet I am still able to relate these theories to my time spent in my internship as well as my time spent as a swimming instructor.

I find Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences a vital part of our educational system.  From my first education class as an undergrad I remember my professor telling the class that all of us are different and she is going to figure out our intelligences.  I sat there and thought this lady was crazy! What is she talking about, our intelligences?   I understood that we were all different but I didn’t understand what she meant by intelligences.  I thought I would just sit in class, she would lecture to us about teaching and we would leave.  I was very wrong. 

My professor took Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences to a whole different level.  She took a simple lesson but taught it in eight different ways, showing us the eight different types of intelligences.  She asked us to rank the lessons based on how well we understood and related to the information that was taught.  It was amazing to see the amount of effort and time she spent on each lesson.  After we ranked the lessons she shared the results with the class, showing us that we all related to different lessons and were different learners.  I was amazed at how many different rankings we had in the class. 

Our teacher did one final lesson.  She made a lesson that encompassed three or four of the different intelligences.  It was amazing to see how many students you could reach in one lesson if you took the time to plan and think about your students on a personal level.

 

I find that Gardner’s theory relates to my beliefs as an educator.  I truly feel that it is a gift that every person is different and that we all learn in different ways.  I love getting to know my students or swimmers and trying different techniques to reach them.  I think that more educators need to take the time at the start of the school year to get to know their students.  It is time consuming, but worth the educational growth of the students.

For instance, at the day camp where I teach swim lessons I have a group of five and six year old girls.  While teaching them lessons I have learned that some of my swimmers respond to verbal demonstrations, some need me to visual demonstrate the lessons, while others need to be kinesthetically involved to understand my lessons.  To help all of my swimmers I try and structure my daily lessons around all three types of intelligences.  It is amazing to see the “light blub” click on when I explain the lesson in terms that my individual students understand.

Amy, my kinesthetic learner sits with a confused look on her face while I verbally and visually explain the stroke of the day to the class.  When I finally ask my swimmers to stand up and physically demonstrate the stroke outside of the water I she her “light blub” click on.  Moving around and practicing the stroke allows Amy to make a connection that the visual and verbal cues don’t help her with.  Discovering this information out about Amy’s learning style really helped me design my lessons. 

While my beliefs on education most closely relate to Howard Gardner and his theory on multiple intelligences, I find B.F. Skinner and his theories on behaviorism most influential thought out time. Skinner’s theories stating that peoples behaviors are acquired through conditioning and these behaviors work with rewards and punishment in order to develop a desired behavior is something that I believe as educators we see everyday in our classrooms.

“The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again”.  This quote from Skinner himself shows that as educators we must reward our students for their positive behavior while giving them consequences for negative behaviors.  From the start of time parents have been giving rewards and punishments to their children.  I remember back when I was young and my dad telling me if I completed my homework for the whole week I would receive a reward of going out for ice cream on Friday.  However, if I did not complete my homework for the week I wouldn’t be allowed to watch TV for the whole weekend on top of no ice cream. At first I tested the water and missed a few homework assignments.  My dad stuck to the consequences and I wasn’t allowed to watch TV all weekend.  I thought this couldn’t last, but it did.  I began to complete my homework every week and received my reward.  My dad performed operant conditioning on me, he showed me that with positive behavior I would be rewarded and with negative behavior I would have a negative consequence.  After this I never missed a homework assignment again, I realized the reward of completing my homework, even if there is no ice cream involved.

 

 

I believe this theorist and his theories to be extremely important in the education world.  Educators need to reward their students for positive behaviors while giving consequences for negative.  Educators must follow through with the consequences in order to change the negative behaviors.  I have seen too many teachers give empty threats, causing their students to test the waters and push their limits with negative behaviors.

 During my internship I watched a 5^th grade teacher threaten to take recess time away from her students daily.  She always said, “if you do that one more time no recess”.  At first this seemed like a fair punishment because the students loved their recess time; however I became aware that she was always telling her students “if you do that one more time”.  She never took their recess time away.  Her students began to realize she was not following through with the punishment and began to act out even more.  It was very hard to watch her students take advantage of her, but she brought the behavior on herself by not following through with the punishment. 

I can honestly say this course was tremendously helpful, informational and fun!  Even though this is an online course I feel connected to all of my classmates by reading their weekly blogs and responding to their posts.  I thought the best part of this course was the weekly blogs and responses.  I found it really helpful to read other peoples thoughts on the weekly readings.  It gave me a chance to catch material I missed while I was reading.  It also gave me a great perspective on how these theories and ideas are working in a classroom setting.  It gave me hope that when I have my own classroom I will be able to implement these strategies into my class.  My favorite assignment was  the "what motivates me" assignment.  It was fun to see pictures of everyone’s families and learn more about each other.  It is awesome to be able to put a face with the name of my classmates.  I also couldn’t be happier with the support of my classmates.  The positive comments I received from my classmates about my job search was overwhelming thoughtful.  I personally find online classes very difficult but it is great to know I have the support of my classmates along the way.        

References

Brookhart, S.M. (2009). The Many Meanings of “Multiple Measures”, p. 6-12

Cauley, K.M., & Pannozzo, G.M. (Eds.). (2013). Annual Editions: Educational Psychology 12/13 (27^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 

Conley, D.T. (2009). Building on the Common Core, p. 17-20

Donhost, M.J & Anfara Jr., V. A. (2010). Data-Driven Decision Making, p. 56-63

Andrade, H. et al. (2009). Assessment-Driven Improvements in Middle School Students’ Writing, p. 4-12

Links:

http://www.examiner.com/article/learning-theory-and-classroom-applications ( Theories)

http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html (Gardner)

http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html (Skinner)

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html (three domains)

http://www.pecentral.org/assessment/assessment.html ( Physical Education assessments) 

 

Below are examples of an affective, cognitive and psychmotor assessment that I used during my internship.    

NAME________________________________________                                             DATE_________________________

Name	Circle all that apply to the person
	Cooperative             Communication             Leader             Productive              Responsible
	Cooperative             Communication             Leader             Productive              Responsible
	Cooperative             Communication             Leader             Productive              Responsible
	Cooperative             Communication             Leader             Productive              Responsible
	Cooperative             Communication             Leader             Productive              Responsible

 Students filled out the name of their group member on each line and circled the word or words that appled to the behavior of their group members. 

Below is an example of  quiz I gave for my jump rope unit with a focus on the five components of fitness.  

NAME:                                                                                         DATE:                           

Answer the questions below to the best of your knowledge from the information we went over from the start of class.

1.     What is body composition?

A.    Fat vs. Height

B.    Fat vs. fat-free mass

C.    Fat free mass vs. weight

D.   Fat free mass vs. age

2.    How can you measure body composition?

A.    Height and Age

B.    How many times you work out in a week

C.    Underwater body fat test, the BodPod, and DEXA Scan

D.   Age and Weight

3.    True or False

If a person has a high body fat percentage they are unhealthy? 

 

The students where instructed to fill out this card using crayons, drawing a green line in the correct box of the skill they could complete and drawing a red line in the box if they needed improvement in a skill.  

NAME:                                                                             DATE:                           

Skill	Basic	Advanced

Example Chart-Student will fill out the name of the skill from the skill card then place the proper drawing in either the basic column or advanced column according to the skill.