Assessment Plan Final

Purpose and Learning Outcome: 
 
The purpose of an assessment plan is to verify that students are gaining skills and knowledge on the subject or the unit that is being taught in the classroom. Teachers are then supposed to verify that information is actually learned through assessments of understanding by testing and examining those results. Teachers write lesson plans and then they perform those tasks through the teaching style. In the process student's learn and gather information through: hands on applications, reading text books, listening to lectures, following along on work sheets, creating projects, and other opportunities. When the teacher reaches the end of the lesson plan they create an assessment or test to verify that these skills have been established. Based on the results the teacher can make changes to the teaching style or offer further assistance to students who may require further help.

For this specific case as a first grade teacher I would write a lesson plan on the unit of health and the human body in how it functions and operates. How does blood flow in the body? What are arteries? What are veins? Why are they important? What does blood carry to our body parts, to help nourish the body? What are the major organs that we have? What senses do we have? The assessment plan will verify that this information has been carried out and absorbed by the students to 80% accuracy.

Learning Outcome:
 
Grade: First Grade
Lesson Plan/Unit: Health/Human Body
Learning Outcome:

Students’ will be able to recognize the major organs in the human body: heart, brain, lungs, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, veins, arteries, liver, and esophagus.

Students’ will be able to orally explain why there are both arteries and veins in the human body and what blood carries.
 

Assessment Context:
 

Students’ will complete a project of the human body where they can label the different organs of the body and color the major veins and arteries the proper identifying color. The organs: brain, heart, esophagus, lungs, stomach, liver, small intestine, and large intestine will be clearly marked and labeled with the veins (blue) and the arteries (red). Students will be able to take home the project to do at home, and add embellishments/items to represent the different organs of the body (macaroni, buttons, tissue, sticks, etc.) or color it by being creative. If the students are unable to find items to represent the organs they can color each of the organs a different color to represent them.
 

Grading Rubric:
 

Grading will be based off of neatness/legibility, organ representation/creativity, and proper labeling/identifying the different organs. This project will be worth 20 points. The outline of human body will be sent home for the students to complete along with instructions and the list of the required organs to label.

	Points Possible	Excellent	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement
Neatness/Legibility	5	The paper needs to look presentable and easy to view/display.	Human body is still understandable but it is more difficult to read.	Human body outline is difficult to read/understand.
Organ Representation/Creativity	5	Different colors/items, used for each organ (buttons, macaroni, string, tin foil, markers, crayons, colors, etc.)	Multiple uses of the same items or items missing on the body.	More than half of the organs are missing (items, or colors).
Proper Labeling/Identification of Organs	10	Organs need to be spelled correctly and placed in the proper location.	Some organs are misspelled or not properly labeled.	Organs are not spelled correctly or miss labeled.

Testing Constraints: 
 

Students’ will be creative by using imaginative ideas to represent the different organs. Also this is a take home project, to get help and assistance from their parents. The assignment will be given on a Friday to wrap up the unit and will be due the following Monday, to be turned in and graded.

Thoughts on Testing: Multiple Choice and Essay Style

Blog Week 3: Test and Essay Questions 

Teachers need to make sure the ideas and teaching style is being absorbed by their students. So, they need to come up with a way to test and validate the unit in which they are learning and that is through testing, projects, worksheets, and even oral examination. Teachers will prepare quizzes, tests, and assessments to offer feedback to themselves and their students. It will allow them to know what is working and what is not. Where improvement might be needed or what skills need further work. 

 Since, this unit and learning outcome is based towards the first grade, limited responses are demanded of students, but the thought process and the results is what is graded. Students are not graded on grammar, punctuation, or spelling. There will be visuals around the room to help students recall what was said.

Preparing ways to test the learning outcomes is an important part of validating the overall success of information retention in students. Teachers need to make sure they use proper sources, ideas, and testing to verify the skills learned and maintained by the curriculum. By using a restrictive response essay question will allow students to recall specific information and organize it into proper manner without requiring them to go into vast detail (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2013).

Offering multiple choices and listing items will give the student a variety of options in taking the test. Not all test questions will be an essay form, but an offer of a using their best guess if they are not sure. Multiple-choice questions can be challenging for younger students but they still can be used on tests and they help give an insight on behavior at the higher levels of the taxonomy of educational objectives (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2013).

Finally another way to test understanding is through picture recognition in younger students. They can match the correct picture to the correct representation of the item. Making sure directions are easy to follow and understandable will help the testing go smoothly (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2013).

Reference

Kubiszyn, T., & Borich, G. D. (2013). Educational testing & measurement: Classroom application and practice (10^th ed.).  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 

Three Learning Outcomes for Science First Grade

Understanding learning outcomes is important for teachers. There are several identifying words that help teachers determine that they are creating an actual outcome and not developing an activity: identify, recall, list, and write (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2013). Where study, watch, listen, and read are key words when developing a learning activiy for a lesson plan (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2013).

Creating learning outcomes is importqnt to help determine the actual learning activities. Students are then observed and tested based on the learning outcome for the unit/subject to verify the information was retained. Each state determines the required information to be learned. Each teacher is given this information and then it is up to them to relay that through the learning outcomes and activities.

An example of three learning outcomes is as follows:

Grade: First
Subject: Science
Unit: Liquid, Solids, & Gases

Learning Outcome (1):

Student’s will be able to recognize the difference between a solid, gas and a liquid by identifying the key components for each state. 

Learning Outcome (2):

Student’s will be able to identify/explain how water turns from: a liquid, to a solid, to a gas, and back again.

Learning Outcome (3):

Student’s will be able to list 3 different kinds of: solids, liquids, gases.   

Each of these learning outcomes will help develop scientific knowledge of gases, liquids, and solids as a part of the educational curriculum.  

Creating testing elements will help make sure that the information that is being taught is retained. Student's will work on worksheets, small group projects, and even do a class project together. This project or classroom activity will show how matter changes states by using a solid ice cube. Applying heat will allow the solid to turn into a liquid, and once it boils it can turn into steam (gas) and when the gas condenses it will turn back to a liquid. 

A few testing questions would be:

(1). What type of matter is air?

a. solid

b. liquid

c. gas

(2). Place a (S) for a solid, (L) for liquid and (G) for gas:
            a. Air               ________

            b. Dirt              ________

            c. Pepsi (pop)  ________

            d. Tree             ________

            e. Steam          ________

            f. Water           ________

(3). What has no shape or size?

            a. gas

            b. solid

            c. liquid

(4). Looking at the picture, what type of matter do you see?

            a. gas

            b. solid

            c. liquid

  (5).

Number (5). can be used as a worksheet to gain prior knowledge on what student's know and understand about matter. It would be a great group activity to go over and to help the students understand. 


Also an essay question to help expand the thought process and to make sure students understand how matter changes is:

Restrictive Response Essay Question:

Recall in our unit on matter: solids, liquids, and gases how the matter changes forms. Explain in your own words how a solid, such as ice can change, from a liquid to a gaseous form and back to liquid again? Do you remember what this process is called when it is dealing with water? 

References:

Kubiszyn, T., & Borich, G. D. (2013). Educational testing & measurement: Classroom application and practice (10^th ed.).  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.