DSL

Documenting Student Learning

Area of Instruction Documentation: First Assignment Penguin Unit

Pre-planning:

When I began planning the Penguin Unit that I taught during my first assignment in the fourth grade, I determined the goals that I had for each student. I decided that I wanted each student to learn about penguins in the areas of their lifestyles, their habitats, their eating habits, the makeup of their bodies, and their reproduction. After deciding on this, I was able to think about and decide the different strategies I would use to establish this learning for my students. The strategies I chose to use were those of differentiated group learning based on learning levels through research using internet resources, books, magazines, and journals. Along with this research, I decided to have students read Mr. Popper's Penguins as a language arts addition to the unit. These strategies would ensure that students gained the knowledge that I wanted them to during the course of the penguin unit.

Pre-assessment:

I decided that first I would assess their knowledge by creating a KWL with the students and taking note of each student and what they knew and did not know. This pre-assessment was done informally through my observations and my own personal notes. I believed that the KWL and informal notes was the best way to measure each student's individual knowledge because giving them a pre-test with information they had never heard about penguins may have caused apprehension in their comfort levels that would cause a disruption in learning. I made sure that the checklist and notes I made were detailed and useful so that I would know whether or not my instruction was successful in the end, and also whether or not the students actually learned and understood the material that I wanted them to learn about penguins.

Link to Pre-Assessment Records

Planning Instruction:

After looking over the notes I had made through the KWL pre-assessment, I decided that in order to plan meaningful instruction, I needed to make a few accomodations. Therefore, I assigned students to groups for research based on differentiated levels. I placed a higher level student, a middle level student, and a lower level student in each group so that they would be able to help, guide, and learn from one another. Along with this, I decided that I would give students a number of different resources for their research including books that I chose from the library that were all different reading levels and the opportunity to research on the internet. I also gave students the opportunity to learn and experiment with PowerPoint through creating their presentations. Through this I was able to challenge my students and create meaningful, yet engaging learning opportunities. I also gave a number of other activities for students to complete such as penguin maps where they had to think critically to place the different types of penguins where they lived on the maps, and I also asked students to keep daily notes in their penguin notebooks that I provided for them. The penguin unit was also accomodating to all students because it made cross-curricular connections between language arts, science, and technology and this helped to engage all students who were interested and enjoyed different subjects.

Teaching Lessons:

Throughout the unit I informally assessed student work through completing routine notebook checks to assess what the students were learning and understanding and what they were not. These notebooks and observations helped to guide my instruction. I was able to see through these notebooks and student work whether or not I needed to reteach a lesson or come up with a better way to convey the instruction and material that I was trying teach the students. Based on these informal notebook assessments, I was also able to see if the groups were working well together. In some cases they were and in others they were not. This was a positive aspect of the informal notebook assessments because in a couple of cases I was able to change the groups around to create more positive and meaningful learning environments for the students.

Post-assessment of Student Learning:

In the end of the unit I was able to formally assess students through an actual written penguin test, their PowerPoint presentations, and also their penguin notebooks. The results helped me to understand that my instruction did in fact work towards teaching the students all I had set out to teach them about penguins, that my assessment was consistent with my objectives, and also that my assessments were age and level appropriate for each student. The three different types of assessment helped accomodate all types and all levels of learners.

Link to Student PowerPoint Presentation Assessment

Link to PowerPoint Assessment Rubric

Link to Written Penguin Assessment

Analysis of Assessment Data:

Link to KWL Pre-assessment Individual Data

Link to KWL Pre-assessment Group Data

Link to Written Post-assessment Individual Data

Link to Written Post-assessment Group Data

Link to PowerPoint Post-assessment Individual Group Data

Link to PowerPoint Post-assessment Group Data

Link to Overall Learning Percentages of Students

My Reflection:

As I think back on the penguin unit I taught and all that it encompassed, through pre-planning, pre-assessment, startegy implementation, and post-assessment, I am happy to say that I feel as though I learned a great deal myself about how to create a meaningful unit so that students are able to learn, and also so I am able to see that my instruction did in fact work to teach students what I set out for them to learn. The results of the post-assessments tell me that my instruction, differentiation, and accomodations for each student worked to help them learn to their best abilities. One-hundred percent of the students mastered the material in the end of the unit. This was remarkable and I was very happy with the results. I believe that this happened through student engagement in lessons and research, and also through my planning and re-planning of group differentiation and instruction strategies. The assessments I gave and informally observed throughout the unit and in the end show that the students really understood the material that I was presenting to them and that they were researching. I believe that although all of the students mastered the material, that this unit could still be improved. One change that I would definitely make if I teach this unit again will be to have students do some of the research for the actual PowerPoint presentations individually instead of completing it all within their groups. This will ensure me that each student understands how to research by both technological uses and by the use of books, newspaper, magazines, and journals. The information I gathered gave me insight to many ideas about the students such as, who knew how to use technology already, who liked to use technology and who did not, and also which students struggled with actual "by the book" research. Another piece of information I gathered through informally assessing the students' penguin notebooks was individual organization skills. These are all aspects that helped me plan further lessons that I taught to the students in the remainder of my first assignment. I really enjoyed completing this documentation and learning from this lesson. I believe that I know am prepared and understand even more fully how to plan and implement lessons and assessments that coincide and work to compliment one another while giving students the best learning opportunities.

Student Work Samples:

Link to High Level Student PowerPoint

Link to Mid Level Student PowerPoint

Link to Low Level Student PowerPoint

Link to KWL Photos

Link to PowerPoint Assessment Rubric

Link to Written Student Assessment

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