Contextual Factors

Community, District and School Factors:  Rockfield Elementary is a Title I school that is located in Warren County and just South-West of Bowling Green, Kentucky.  The population of Rockfield Elementary is 550, pre-school through sixth grade.  It is in a rural community with a population of about 2,000.  The average annual family income is between $60,000 and $90,000.  There are many different racial/ethic backgrounds within the community as well as the school.  There are students who are African American, American Indian, Asian, Bosnian, Hispanic, and White.  Rockfield is a community that is growing rapidly and one that supports education.

Classroom Factors:  The classroom includes individual desks for each student, grouped and placed where everyone can see the front of the classroom.  The ACTIV board in the front of the classroom provides a means for whole class viewing of PowerPoint presentations, Internet websites, flip carts, and videos.  The schedule is the same every day so the students know exactly what to expect.  Social Studies lessons take place in the morning after self-selected reading and writing.  There are four classroom rules that the students are expected to follow: keep hands, feet, and objects to yourself; treat others the way you want to be treated; follow the directions the first time; and listen to the teacher.  Rockfield uses a school-wide 0-4 talking level system which helps regulate noise control.  Also, my cooperating teacher uses the CHAMPS program for classroom procedures.  There is a great deal of parent involvement in the classroom.  Parents frequently arrange parent-teacher conferences, communicate with the teacher on a daily basis in the student assignment books, and help their child with homework and at home projects.    

Student Characteristics:  There are 27 students in the classroom, 10 boys and 17 girls.  The students range from 8-10 years old.  One student is African American and two are biracial, with the rest of the class being white.  There is no ESL, Title I, or ESS students.  There is only one child who has an IEP, but it is only for speech needs.  There are no instructional modifications needed for that student.   All of the students are considered fourth graders; although, there are four below grade level and six above grade level.  The students have had social study instruction before, however the students have had no formal instruction on the social sciences.  There are 12 step-by-step learners, 8 social learners, 7 creative learners, and no curious learners.

Instructional Implications:  The most obvious factor that will influence my teaching is the various types of learners that are in the class.  Since I have step-by-step, social, and creative learners I will need to make sure I plan my instruction so that each of my students will benefit from the lessons.  I will be sure to provide all of my students with clear and explicit instructions for each lesson especially for the step-by-step learners.  I will try to incorporate group and partner work for the students who are social learners.  Also, I will provide my creative learners with many opportunities to learn by using their creativity.  Another factor that will impact my teaching is the wide range in achievement levels.  I have four students who are below grade level so I will have to be sure they understand what is being asked of them.  Also, I will need to check on them regularly and provide further instruction or help if needed.  There are also six students who are above grade level.  In order to challenge these students I will need to prepare extension activities for each lesson that will further their instruction and require them to think at a higher level. 

Learning Goals

Learning Goal 1 (LG 1):  The students will distinguish between the four social institutions: economist, historian, geographer, and political scientist.   This learning goal is on the comprehension level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  It aligns with the standard because the students are learning about the social intuitions and the characteristics of each.

Learning Goal 2 (LG 2):  The students will examine why the study of social sciences is important and essential to understanding human behavior.  This learning goal is on the analysis level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  It aligns with the standard because the students are learning about the importance of the social sciences and how human behavior is affected.

Learning Goal 3 (LG 3):  The students will gather and analyze various artifacts and evidence that social scientists use in their research.  This learning goal is on the analysis level of Blooms Taxonomy.  It aligns with the standard because students will be gathering and analyzing an assortment of artifacts that describe and are used by the various social institutions (economists, historians, geographer, and political scientist)

All three of my learning goals are aligned to:
Kentucky Core Content:  SS-04-2.2.1  Students will describe social institutions in Kentucky and how they respond to the needs of the people.

Academic Expectations  2.16 Students observe, analyze, and interpret human behaviors, social groupings, and institutions to better understand people and the relationships among individuals and among groups.

Program of Studies:  Grade 4 Skills and Concepts

Students will investigate social institutions (e.g., family, government, economy, education, religion) in Kentucky and explain their functions.

These learning goals were designed using the contextual factors of my students.  They are developmentally appropriate for fourth grade students because they are intended to build upon prior knowledge of social studies yet still provide an introduction to social studies for the beginning of the fourth grade school year.  These goals were constructed to provide my students with hands-on and step-by-step activities along with real-world connections which are important for students of this age.  Each of these goals includes higher level thinking skills intended to challenge my students in every lesson.  The learning goals are also designed to accommodate the various learning styles of the classroom.  My lessons will include clear step-by-step instructions for each activity, opportunities for my social learners to interact with classmates in group work, and the freedom to be creative within the activities. 

Assessment Plan

Overview:

[See Appendix A for the pre-assessment and Appendix B for the post-assessment]

My pre-assessment and post-assessment are exactly the same.  The assessment contains multiple choice and short answer questions.  The first six questions align with LG 1 because they require students to distinguish between the four social scientists.  Questions 1, 5, and 6 are all multiple choice questions and questions 2, 3, and 4 have two parts to them, the first part being multiple choice then followed by short answer.  Questions 12, 13, 14, and 15 align to LG 2 because they require students to examine why each of the social sciences are important and essential to us as human beings.  All four of the questions are short answer and requires students to give at least two different reasons for each of the social scientists.  Questions 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 align to LG 3 because the students are required to analyze various pictures of artifacts and determine which social scientist would use it in their research.  Questions 7 and 8 both have a picture of an object and the student will analyze and determine which one of the four social scientists would be most interested in it by answering a multiple choice question.  Then the student will give a short answer telling why that particular social scientist would be interested in it.  The students will be taught that there could be more than one social scientist who would be interested in the same object.  As long as the student can back up their answer in the short answer section then it will be counted as correct.  For question 9 the students will be listing two artifacts that a historian would be interested in and then explaining why a historian would be interested in it.  Again, if the student can back up their answer with a valid response then it will be counted as correct.  Questions 10 and 11 have the students analyze a picture of a boy selling lemonade.  For question 10 the students are required to choose the social scientist who would be most interested in talking to the boy by answering a multiple choice question.  Then the students are required to list two things that the social scientist would be interested in.  For question 11 the students are asked what the objects in the pictures are examples of and are required to choose the best response from the multiple answers given.

There are 9 points related to LG1, 8 points related to LG 2, and 12 points related to LG 3 on both the pre-assessment and post-assessment.  This makes for a total of 29 points on both assessments.  All of multiple choice questions will be evaluated using a key.  Each student will have a different answer for the short answer questions.  As long as the student has a valid response and can back up their answer it will be counted as correct.  The mastery criteria for LG 1 is 7 out of 9 points (77.78%); the mastery criteria for LG 2 is 6 out of 8 points (75%); and the mastery criteria for LG 3 is 9 out of 12 points (75%).  The mastery criterion for the entire assessment (pre and post) is 22 out of 29 points (75.86%).

My formative assessment will include a variety of modes for evaluation.  I will use anecdotal records, oral questioning and responses during whole class discussion, independent activities, small group activities, design of social scientists hats, collection of artifacts, completion and accuracy of handouts, and performance in the review game.  Each lesson will begin with whole group discussion as a means to activate prior knowledge and to assess comprehension on previously-taught material. Through this informal assessment I can gather information from students on what they learned and what they are still struggling with so I can ensure that every student grasps the information.  There will also be whole group discussion during and at the end of each lesson to assess participation and student learning.  This type of assessment not only helps me assess but also allows students to hear the information and concepts from their classmates a second time to reinforce information.  Another form of assessment will be the preview handout and workbook page 1.  This assessment will not only provide students a means of previewing the chapter to become familiar with the text but will also give me a more structured means of seeing were students are in their understanding.  An additional means of formative assessment involves students designing social scientist hats based on information they read about each of the four social scientists [See Appendixes C-J].  Students will be given freedom to choose the information they feel is important and to design symbols on their hats to represent each of the four social scientists.  This form of assessment not only allows me to assess if students understand the important concepts but also allows my creative learners to be creative with their learning.  The artifact handout and having students bring in items from home will allow me to assess student knowledge of the objects social scientists would be interested in [See Appendixes K].  This means of assessment provides a real-world connection for students to see that each social scientist studies certain things and uses certain artifacts in their research.  Another form of formative assessment is the completion of a social scientist activity [See Appendixes L-P].  The students will choose one of the four given prompts to create a final project.  This mode of assessment will give me more detailed information to assess student understanding of the social scientists.  The project will be graded using a rubric [See Appendix Q].  The review game will enable me to do a last-minute check for misunderstandings that need to be explained before the post-test.

Design for Instruction

            The results of the pre-assessment showed that there were no students who achieved mastery criteria for any of the learning goals [See Appendix T].  The average score for the class for LG1 was a 31.7% with the mastery criteria being 77.78%.  The average score for the class for LG2 was a 28.2% and the average score for the class for LG3 was a 30.6% with the mastery criteria for both being 75%.  The class’s average on the entire pre-test was a 30.2% with the mastery criteria being a 75.86%.

            From these results, I can see that that the concepts I plan to teach are concepts that my students have not mastered.  I do think that the students will be able to master the concepts within the two week unit, so I will keep my learning goals as they are.  Since the average scores for each of the learning goals were very similar I will spend an equal amount of instruction time on each learning goal. 

Overview: (See References and Credits for activity source information)

Activity One:   One activity that I am designing for my unit is the “Social Scientists Hats” handouts/graphic organizers.  This activity will be apart of day 2 and day 3 of my unit.  This activity is related to LG 1 because the students will be designing hats using the information they read about in the text.  The students will be decorating one hat for each of the four social scientists.  This will help them distinguish between the four social scientists.  There were no students who mastered LG 1 on the pre-test, so I know that this activity will help them learn about and differentiate between the four social scientists.  I decided that I would make examples to show the students exactly what I expect of them [See Appendixes D, F, H, and J].  I will place each example on the ACTIV Board after we read about each social scientist.  Along with the examples I will write out the directions for the students to reference throughout the activity.  This will help my step-by-step learners by having the examples, the directions, and expectations on the ACTIV Board for them to refer to.  This activity is also focused toward my creative learners.  They will have the freedom to choose what they think is important from the text and then illustrate those ideas on their hats.  Finally, I will be allowing students to discuss ideas while they are designing their hats for the social learners.  The students will be assessed by their participation, amount of ideas illustrated, and relevance.  I will also be taking anecdotal records as the students are working.  I will be listening for relevant discussion and for student knowledge of the social sciences. 

Activity Two:  Another activity that I am planning for my unit is the “Artifact Activity.”  This activity relates to LG 3 because the students will be gathering and analyzing various artifacts and evidence that social scientists use in their research.   After learning about each of the four social scientists the students will collect items from home to bring in to represent each social scientist [See Appendix K].  Prior to the activity I will send home a letter to parents explaining the activity and a handout for students to complete about their artifacts.  The items will be sent to school in a brown paper bag that I will provide.  On day four students will view a PowerPoint presentation that I created to explain my expectations and the directions for the activity.  The student will then be put into groups and they will discuss with their group members the artifacts that they brought in and their responses to the handout.  Once everyone has had chance to share their artifacts, as a group, they will choose four artifacts to put into a group bag.  On day five each of the groups will receive another group’s bag of artifacts and they will discuss and analyze the artifacts to decide which of the social scientists would be most interested in it.  They will record their answers in their Interactive Student Notebooks.  There were no students who mastered LG 3 on the pre-test, so I know that this activity will help the students analyze various artifacts and evidence that social scientists use in their research.

Activity Three:  Another activity that I am planning for my unit is the “Social Scientist Activity.”  This activity will help the students master LG 1 and LG 2 since the students will be distinguishing between each of the four social scientists and will be thinking about and examining why the study of social sciences is important and essential to understanding human behavior.  On day six the students will be given four different prompts, one for each of the social scientists.  Each prompt has an activity that the students will complete.  I will go over each of the prompts and explain to the students exactly what is expected of them.  Each student will be given a rubric that we will go over as a class and I will show them examples that I have created for each prompt.  We will use the ACTIV Board to look at the teacher examples and then compare them to the rubric.  On day 7 the students will be able to choose one activity that they would like to complete and then have the entire class time to work on their activity. [See Appendixes L-Q]

Technology:  Technology was used throughout the entire planning process.  I used my resources and took advantage of the latest information and activities that can be found on internet websites.  I also plan to use a PowerPoint presentation to help explain to students my expectations and directions for completing the artifact activity, which I believe will help my step-by-step learners immensely.  I plan to use the ACTIV Board at some point during almost every lesson.  The camera feature will allow me to show my teacher examples and rubric to the entire class at one time.  Flip charts will also be used to write important information that is discussed in the text and directions for each activity for the students to reference throughout the lesson.  Finally, I plan on having the students play a review game at the end of the unit before their test.  I designed a “Family Feud” type game that for my class will be called “Friendly Feud.”  I found “Family Feud” theme music to play between each of the questions, which I think the students will love!

Instructional Decision-Making

            My first instructional decision came during my third lesson.  The students were asked to read the text about three of the four social scientists and then decorate three different hats.  I allowed the students to work with partners to read the text and to share ideas while they were decorating their hats.  We read the text aloud as a class the day before and since they did such a great job being active learners, I allowed them to find a spot around the room with a partner for this lesson.  The students did a great job staying on task and at a whisper voice level.  I could tell that they were actively engaged in the lesson as I was walking around the room.  About half-way though the lesson I noticed that almost all of the students were still working on the first social scientist hat.  They were doing such a great job putting a lot of details and information on their hats; many were even running out of space!  I decided that I would allow the students some time next day to read about the last social scientist and complete the hat.  I think that this decision helped improve student progress toward LG 1.  Changing my plans allowed students to focus on just two of the social scientists which otherwise would have been three.  The students could have been confused and over-whelmed if they had to distinguish between three in one day instead of two.  Also, I may have received poor quality work that would have been rushed through and not up to their potential. 

            The second instructional decision that I made was on day 7.  Towards the end of class, while students were finishing their social science activity, I explained to them the upcoming events of the unit.  I informed the students that the next day we were going to play a game to review the concepts and information from this unit.  Then, I went on to tell them that the test was going to be the following day.  After I made this announcement seven or eight students raised their hands.  I called on one student who asked if I could provide them with a study guide so they could study and be prepared for the review game the next day.  The other students nodded in agreement.  One student even said that he wanted to study so he could get all of the answers correct during the game…my students are VERY competitive!  Through formative assessment during the entire unit I was confident that the students had mastered the learning goals I set forth.  So, I had not planned on giving the students a study guide and did not have one prepared to give them.  I thought for a second about how egger the students were to study at home.  Since they had this eagerness and willing to master the concepts I knew that I needed to provide that for them and so I took my planning time to create a study guide for the students to complete at home and study.  Also, since I made this adjustment I had to push back the review game and test.  After giving the study guide, I told the students that they could complete it for homework and the next day we would go over the correct answers.  I then explained that the following two days would be the review game and test.  The students were very grateful that I did this for them and they even thanked me!  I think that this did help my students master all three learning goals.  They were able to practice and study more than they would have which allowed them to be more successful. 

Analysis of Student Learning

            After grading my students’ social scientist unit post-assessment, I was able to compare how my students performed on the pre- and post-assessment.  I was interested to compare this information to see how much the students had learned and how many students mastered the learning goals I set forth.

            It is obvious by looking at the Pre-Assessment vs. Post-Assessment graphs for each learning goal [See Appendix U] that all of the students showed increases in knowledge and comprehension after they had completed the unit.  Each and every student’s scores improved from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment.       

            Twenty-five out of twenty-seven students met the mastery for LG 1 which was 77.78%.  The other two students fell just short of meeting the mastery criterion with a 66.7%.  There were thirteen students who received a perfect score in relation to LG 1.  The average score for LG 1 on the post-assessment was 91.8%.  Twenty-five out of twenty-seven students met mastery for LG 2 which was 75%.  There were two students who were just below mastery criterion with a 62.5%.  There were thirteen students who received a perfect score in relation to LG 2.  The average post-assessment score for LG 2 was 90.3%.  All twenty-seven students achieved mastery for LG 3.  There were twelve students who received a perfect score for LG 3.  The average score for LG 3 was a 92%.  All but one student met mastery criterion for the entire post-assessment which was a 75.86%.

            I decided to analyze LG 1 in terms of students who sit in the front of the class vs. students who sit in the back of the class performance on the pre- and post-assessment.  I knew that when I was designing my unit that most of the content for this learning goal would be direct instruction while the students are at their seats.  I wanted to see if this factor affected student learning.  I created a graph showing the pre- and post-assessment scores for each of the students who sit in the back of class compared to the average pre- and post-assessment scores for my students who sit in the front of class. 

The graph shows me that every student who sits in the back of the class except for one had lower pre-assessment scores compared to the average students’ score in the front of the class.  Also the students who sit in the back of the class post-assessment scores were all lower, except for three, than the average score of the students who sit in the front of the class.  To relate these findings in specific number terms, the average pre-assessment score for the students who sit in the back of the classroom was 22.2% while 39.3% was the average score of the students who sit in the front of the class.  For the post-assessment scores, the students who sit in the back of the classroom had an average score of 86.3% while 96.6% was the average score of the students who sit in the front of the class.  This data shows that the students who sit in the back of the class average score went up from a 22.2% to an 86.3% which is a 64.1% increase.  While the students who sit in the front of the class average score went up from a 39.3% to a 96.9% which is a 57.3% increase. This data tells me that the students who sit in the back of the class had a larger increase in scores from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment compared to the students who sit in the front of the class.  However, for the most part the data is very close.  Since the data is so close, I can not say that this factor defiantly affected student learning. 

I used two of my male students, Matthew and Alex, for my individual comparison.  I selected these two students for several reasons.  First, they showed the widest difference in scores:  Matthew received the lowest overall score of 69% on the post-assessment while Alex received one of the highest overall scores of 100% (I had several students who scored 100%).  In addition, both of these students sit in opposite back corners of the room, which were the two furthest students from me during direct instruction.  Another reason why I chose these particular students was their difference in achievement levels; Matthew is a student who is below grade level while Alex is a student who is above grade level.

            Both of these students received low scores on their pre-assessment; Alex made a 44.8% and Matthew made a 10.3%.  However, their scores were very different on the post-assessment which was mentioned above.  This shows improvement for both students but a significant improvement for Alex.  For LG 1, Alex scored a 55.6% on his pre-assessment while Matthew did not answer any questions correctly.  For the post-assessment for LG 1 both students showed improvement, Alex made a perfect score while Matthew only scored a 66.7% which is below mastery criterion.  For LG 2 both students scored a 25% on their pre-assessment, but for the post-assessment Matthew only scored a 62.5% (below mastery criterion) while Alex scored a perfect score again.  For LG 3 Alex scored a 50% on his pre-assessment while Matthew scored an 8.3%.  Then on the post-assessment Alex made a perfect score again and Matthew scored a 75%, which was above mastery criterion. 

            In terms of formative assessment, Matthew repeatedly got off task and found it hard to stay focused on the concepts being taught.  He constantly made noises and played with everything in his desk.  I had to repeatedly ask him to pay attention during every lesson.  During group work activities his group members often came up to inform me that he was talking about things other than social studies topics and copying their answers.  He would never raise his hand during whole class discussion and when he was called on anyway, he hardly ever answered the questions asked of him correctly.  Alex, on the other hand, paid close attention throughout the lessons, was egger to answer questions during whole class discussion and frequently answered the questions asked of him correctly.  He was also the student who asked me if I could provide him with a study guide so he could be prepared for the review game and test. 

            Overall, Alex is an excellent example of the type of learning I hope to see with all of my students.  He started off with little prior knowledge, but after the unit mastered all of the learning goals.  Matthew, however, showed little improvement over the course of the unit.  I will need to reflect further on the reasons why Matthew did not master the learning goals set forth and how I can modify my lessons to encourage the success of similar students. 

Reflection and Self-Evaluation

            The increase in scores from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment in relation to each learning goal was very close.  For LG 1 the increase was a 60.1%, for LG 2 the increase was a 62.1% , and for LG 3 the increase was a 61.4%. 

The learning goal where my students showed the most success was LG 2, which states that the students will examine why the study of social sciences is important and essential to understanding human behavior.  I think that one obvious reason was that most of the students were unfamiliar with the terms: economist, political scientist, historian, and geographer.  Since they were unfamiliar with this they were not able to perform well on the pre-assessment.  Another reason for this success was because once they were taught about the social scientist then they were able to use their prior knowledge and relate each of the social scientist to their life to understand human behavior and why they are important.  Students learn more when they connect the information they learn to prior knowledge and can relate it to something in their life.

The learning goal where my students showed the least success was LG 1, which states that the students will distinguish between the four social institutions: economist, historian, geographer, and political scientist.  I think that main reason for this was because the questions to the assessment had two parts, the first part being multiple choice and the second part being short answer.  It was obvious when I was grading the test that if the student answered the multiple choice question incorrectly then they would answer the short answer question incorrectly as well, resulting in losing both points.  Also the students rushed through the first couple pages of the test.  While I was walking around the room during the test I noticed that the students were answering the questions very quickly.  They were not carefully reading all of the responses before they circled one.  Another reason was that the instruction for LG 1 was during the first couple days of my unit.  The students reviewed the material for the review game and the study guide, but as a class we did relearn all of the information that was taught during the first couple of days.  Many of the students could have forgotten what they were taught or gotten confused on the assessment.  For future student success I will be sure to provide a “refresher” before the assessment to discuss topics covered at the beginning of units incase students do forget.  Also, I will include more questions in my review game and my study guides to relate to the topics covered first to provide a more comprehensive review.  I will also encourage students to review all of the material and activities that we completed during the unit (for this unit, the social scientists hats) to study. 

I developed several learning goals for myself as I went though the planning and instruction related to my unit.  First, I had a difficult time coming up with higher-level questions.  In my education classes, we briefly reviewed how to construct higher level questions, but I did not receive enough practice writing higher-level test questions.  So, in order to be able to write these types of questions with more success I plan do some research on my own to find examples and I will practice writing example questions.  I also plan on seeking other teachers’ guidance with creating higher-level questions.  I would like create a “higher-level question” binder to keep all of this information and examples so I can reference it when constructing test questions.

The second learning goal that I made for myself is that I need to learn better techniques for keeping students on task during instructional and independent work.  I planned a lot of fun activities during my unit.  The students were so excited and resulted in me having to constantly call down and refocus students.  I started of my first couple of lessons by reviewing the CHAMPS chart with the students, but after that I stopped using it assuming that the students knew what was expected of them.  I think that I need to review the CHAMPS chart before every lesson until the students are completely aware of my expectations, what they should be doing, and then can show me.  I have already purchased a few classroom management books that I plan to read for techniques I can use.  In addition I would like to talk with several other teachers to ask about their classroom management ideas and how to keep students engaged.  In the near future I plan on trying many of the techniques I find until I achieve this goal.  I also believe that this will be an ongoing goal thought my teaching career since every class is different and will respond to different methods.  I plan to keep a journal or binder that includes all of the classroom management techniques that I find so I can reference it each school year.