Chapter Eight Reflection Assessments are vital in the school but, how should a teacher give an assessment? In chapter eight the pros and cons of assessments in schools are laid out. There are also many types of ways to test from project all the way to essay questions. This chapter also reminds teachers to not only give assessments, but also to reflect on how they are doing as a teacher. Assessment is important because it shows how students are progressing and what they need to be held accountable for. Although some students are hurt by poor test scores, it helps them understand what they need to work on and helps the teacher as well. Finding the right assessment strategies for your classroom will help your students test confidently. There …show more content…
I believe that if I am enthusiastic about the lesson that I can really teach my students more than they would grasp in a regular textbook. I believe that oral history places a positive aspect in social studies because a typical social studies class gets a negative reputation. I also like the idea of each child doing a timeline so that other students can see the lives of their classmates. When a child sees that their friend is from another country I want them to think that it is so awesome and by incorporating the timeline project students can brag about where they are from and their different interests. In conclusion, oral history, storytelling, and doing interactive history lessons with a class will excite students and hopefully keep them positive about social studies and all it has to …show more content…
Inquiry is defined as a process that involves gathering data and hypothesis testing. This is important for students to learn about inquiry because many historians use this method for investigating history. Ancient philosophers are known for using inquiry such as Aristotle. Teaching students to use research and how to properly perform research allows them to explore history on their own and discover new and different things. There are many methods of research such as surveys, sampling, experimental research, and descriptive research. I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter and found the sampling techniques very useful and easy to use when exploring history. I think it would be a fun activity for students to preform a stratified random selection around school to reach an outcome. This would not only teach them how to sample, but also they would have to speak to individuals and that relays back to social studies. I also think that experimental research would benefit social studies students because it allows students to go out and explore the world around them while they use inquiry. It is important that students know what is around them and in their surrounding community and experimental research allows them to do
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
Savage, J. & Fautley, M. (2008). Assessment for Learning and Teaching in Secondary Schools. Dawsonera [Online]
For my Final Reflection Essay I attempted to focus on the most obvious adjustments I made from writing high school papers to producing college level essays. This approach compelled me to examine a few of the papers I submitted in high school and look back on the steps I took to write them. By reviewing my previous work I realized that during Dr. Kennedys English 111 class I have effectively learned how to apply an outline, utilize research, and incorporate that research into my final paper. English 111 has helped me to understand the importance of the multiple steps of writing a great college level essay by forcing me to complete each step individually. My overall performance in this class has been above average and I have really demonstrated dedication to improvement.
Assessments have always been a tool for teachers to assess mastery and for a long time it was just to provide a grade and enter it into the grade book or report card. Through resources in and out of the course, there has been a breath of new life into the research on how to use assessments. They take many forms and fall within the summative or formative assessment category. Sloan (2016) addresses how formative assessments has traditionally been used by teachers to modify instruction, but when we focus on a classroom that is learner-centered “it becomes assessment for learning as opposed to assessment of learning” (slide 4). The fact is, the students are the ones that should be and are the ones using the data we collect through assessments, since it is our way of providing feedback in order
Assessment is the biggest contributor to helping teachers determine what concepts or topics need to be taught or even skipped. “The purpose of all assessment is to provide teachers with the information to best inform their teaching and work with individual children, Eliason, C. et al. Assessments are related to the curriculum in the fact that it can change the teacher’s plan. Assessments show the teacher what students may or may not know and their strengths and weaknesses. If you noticed that most of your class struggled on a certain topic the you, the teacher, will not move forward, but will reteach the concept. You will not know what to teach your class without giving some form of assessment. Assessment is critical and highly important in the classroom and effects how lessons are taught and the sequence of your
Finally, I might tie in a social studies and science lesson by having my students trace how a cocoa bean becomes a bar of chocolate. They can research where cocoa is grown (geography,) how it is grown (science,) learn about fair trade vs. non fair trade, imports and exports, supply and demand (economics) as well as the process that happens when the cocoa beans finally make it to the factory
“Assessment is one of the most effective instructional strategies to increase learning.” (Edutopia)When teachers think about assessment quality, they often focus on the accuracy of the instrument itself- the scope of which the assessment item tasks and scoring rubrics produce accurate information. It is imperative to use the different testing technique to improve learning. By taking tests, students can establish that they are independently capable of expressing their understanding of the material. I will have an opportunity to analyze each student's understanding and ability to apply learned information. I can then decide whether the
History is a great topic of conversation u could talk and talk about history for hours granted u know enough about it and that’s were your history class comes in handy. Lets say your hanging with your friends and there is an acward silence you could start a debate a bout history it probably will never happen but hey you never know. Or you could wow people with your useless knowledge of how Europeans learned they could blow stuff up with gunpowder the Chinese invented.
This semester I observed two American history lessons. The grade levels were 7th and 8th grade. The lessons were taught differently and the teachers used different approaches and strategies. Both classrooms had active class participation and engagement. Observing these classes has offered me new insights on teaching American history to different grade levels.
This first part I will go why we should teach it. The reason why we should teach social studies is very important. One reason is the nonrepeating of history. The quite possibly biggest reason that people give is this one. It is also very true because we need to inform people of the past so they do not repeat the same bad actions. They do this so we do not have a case of a second Hitler. The second reason is to teach concepts of culture and economics. It teaches concepts of culture going over history and geography. It goes over the history of certain cultures through out the world that are important to the development of the world. The geography part teaches of cultures throughout the world that are current and historical. Geography is important because it is very important to have knowledge of the world you live in. It teaches of the history of certain countries that existed a long time ago and ones of that exist today. The second part is how we teach social studies. The way a lot of people and students associate social studies teaching is an old white man lecturing in front of a class. This is generally found to be very boring and not very enticing to participate in these situations. One way to combat this stereotype is too do an engaging and socially connecting class. Ways to make it engaging is to do different types of activities to do during class. This includes simulations, jigsaw lessons, and
I believe that education should be looked as as a desire to acquire all possible knowledge, not as a requirement or something that can be formally examined by standardized tests. There are numerous ways that children learn and I want to be able to encourage as much learning as possible for each child. I believe that using many methods of instruction is the most effective way of teaching to these various ways of learning. These methods include group work, hands-on activities, buddy work, etc. Assessment of children should follow the same idea. When children get the chance to perform on different assessments, they can adequately show their strengths and weaknesses. I do not wish to rely on tests only to assess the students in my class. Some types of assessment that I think should be inlcuded in a classroom are journals, presentations, projects and interviews. I also think that the classroom should be run with the help of the children. By distributing jobs among the children and everyone participating in the classroom, the students will form a sense of togetherness. This will eventually create a community within the classroom. I feel that this community of learners is essential for the students to perform effectively and efficiently. They will feel comfortable in the environment and will not be afraid to take risks or ask questions. The teacher will also be a member of this community and will not be seen as unapproachable or as the only leader.
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots” (Marcus Garvey). History is in everything. Writing this paper is history. Everything we do becomes history. That’s why we all must learn our own history and origin. Without it we are all lost. There is so much history, just in America, it can’t be taught by one generation. There needs to be teachers of history in every generation. Making sure their peers know of ancient history and the history of yesterday. Teaching history is what I am meant to do. First, I have to be taught how to teach, acquire skills, and get experience before I can teach a class of my own.
In spite of the importance of assessment in education, few teachers receive proper training on how to design or analyze assessments. Due to this, when teachers are not provided with suitable assessments from their textbooks or instructional resources, teachers construct their own in an unsystematic manner. They create questions and essay prompts comparable to the ones that their teachers used, and they treat them as evaluations to administer when instructional activities are completed predominantly for allocating students' grades. In order to use assessments to improve instruction and student learning, teachers need to change their approach to assessments by making sure that they create sound assessments. To ensure that their assessments are sound they need include five basic indicators that can be used as steps to follow when creating assessments. The first of these indicators and the first step a teacher must take when creating a sound assessme...
Inquiry is an interactive way of learning. Students are actively engaged in their studies. Inquiry involves student-centered activities focusing on questioning, exploring, and posing explanations. The goal of inquiry is to introduce a new way of learning where students can learn about the world around them through active engagement in real-life examples. Inquiry based learning can be incorporated into all academic subjects throughout the curriculum. Science could possibly be the most effective subject to incorporate inquiry.
One example is to integrate social studies lessons into reading lessons. To do this, a teacher can pick a book for a read aloud that is non-fiction and explains an event from history. The teacher can also incorporate social studies into reading by teaching units within the classroom. The unit theme can be a social studies topic and all the language arts work, writing, and reading work can be tied to something in social studies; the units could be geographical, moral, or even government themed. Also, another example is to incorporate social studies into science lessons. In greater detail, a teacher can teach a science lesson like climate change or geology but incorporate some social studies topics. If a teacher is teaching a science lesson on climate the teacher could explain how the winds move or how weather is formed in certain parts of the world. This would include geography and climate study within one lesson. Also if a teacher is teaching a science lesson on geology there could also be come economics weaved in. This could be done by explaining what products can be made from these rocks, where the products are found, and where how the products get to the United States or why they are not made here but in a different