Performance Task Evaluation

The purpose of this performance task evaluation is to evaluate a student in my field experience based on a rubric that has been provided. During my field experience, I had the opportunity to observe a student in an AP Biology class during a genetics lab activity. The teacher provided students with two cards, one big A (dominant) and one little a (recessive). The students were instructed to go around the class and perform random mating by flipping the cards and documenting the results. At the end of the lab, the students were provided with a worksheet to write down their documentation and perform some mathematical questions. The students initially had written a hypothesis so this was their experiment to conduct, which lead to an opportunity for the students to come up with a conclusion on whether or not the experiment supported their hypothesis.

Understanding: 3

The student did very well with conducting the class experiment and using his knowledge of genetics to identify the different genotypes and phenotypes. He was able to answer a majority of the questions on the worksheet provided at the end of the experiment. He provided an explanation for why he believed that the experiment did not support the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. The student was provided with a 3 for his lack of understanding on some of the questions from the worksheet. He lacked understanding of the material since he was engaging in personal discussions at the time the teacher provided a step-by-step explanation. He did demonstrate understanding most of the information, but there was just a small issue that needed to be addressed.

Planning and Execution: 3

The student was able to utilize all available resources to address the experiment and worksheet. The student used the collected documentation from the experiment to complete the worksheet that had step-by-step questions. The student was able to solve problems by clearly understanding the purpose of the experiment and how it provided feedback for the worksheet assignment. The student utilized tables and charts to correctly perform the mathematical questions. I provided the student with a 3 because he made a mockery of the experiment during the process. He is a very smart young man, but though the idea of an experiment that involved “mating” for the purpose of genetics involved jokes. He could have been more proactive in helping his fellow peers who had difficulties.

Communication: 4

The student demonstrated a clear explanation of his hypothesis, the experiment, and his conclusion. He accurately used mathematical and scientific representation in the worksheet. He provided clear mathematical and scientific terminology and notation regarding genetics. The student was provided with a 4 considering he provided clear explanations during class discussions and use the worksheet efficiently.

Persistence: 3

The student did require some help on the questions from the worksheet, but he did work hard on the experiment. He managed to complete the assignment and worksheet in a timely manner. This student was provided with a 3 because even though he worked independently to complete tasks, he did need some help.

The Cell Theory Rubric

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZB0NV6mVYIRe7LcayrmovMw1bLu7IEdEaQ8vSH1dWcM/edit?usp=sharing

Reflection

Throughout my experience from high school through college, I have had experiences with variety types of standardized tests. During high school students, I had to take the HSA tests that assessed my knowledge on English, American Government, Biology, and Mathematics. This type of test reflects on the teachers, which I feel is a type of stereotyping. This standardized test is to assess student knowledge of a subject and considering each student learns different; I do not feel that the test should reflect on the teacher. The scores from this test help provide feedback to the teacher in order for the teacher to change instruction based on the needs of their student. During my sophomore and senior year of high school, I took the SAT test, which was broken down into reading, writing, and mathematics. Honestly I know I did not do the best I could have done on this form of assessment because I did not understand the meaning of the test. Colleges assess this score in order to determine whether you are qualified enough to be accepted into the college or the program. I do find this form of assessment important because it does emphasize basic skills that students obtain over a period of time in high school. In college, I took a TEAS test for a nursing requirement, which assessed mathematics, science, and language arts. This test reminded me of the SAT exam so I did not understand why this form of assessment was necessary instead of encouraging students to submit their SAT scores. In recent experiences, I have taken a lot of praxis exams in PLT, business, biology, mathematics, writing, and reading. I find these tests challenging, but beneficial to the importance of assessing whether or not individuals are qualified to teach. It is important to make sure that each teacher has the understanding from the content area praxis requirements. Even during our MAT experiences, we have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to assess our personality traits. This type of assessment is just a fun little quiz, but can be beneficial for companies and schools because it provides them with an understanding of the applicant’s qualities. Overall, I find the praxis exams a great form of assessment because they are challenging enough to make sure that there is a clear understanding of the information with emphasis on the content. If I know that I did not pass it, it provided me with the feedback on the areas that I needed to study in order to improve upon. This type of test is not meant to make a student feel discouraged, but created to encourage learning.

Standardized tests are developed to assess student knowledge and provide teachers with feedback to adjust instruction based on their needs. This form of assessment assesses ability and achievement in understanding, comprehension, knowledge, and/or capability within a particular area (Wikipedia, 2015). A standardized test can help determine students’ strengths and weaknesses (Popham, 2014). This type of testing monitors the students’ progress over a period of time. Testing students also allows teachers to understand how effective their teaching has been (Popham, 2014). It is important that teachers have the resources to understand if their instruction methods are successful or need some alterations. On June 2, 2010, the Common Core State Standards was established by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association (Popham, 2014). This has played a major impact on instructional and assessment practices. CCSS has been developed to represent the curricular outcomes that are expected for the nation’s students (Popham, 2014).

The motivation for standardized test is finding a way to assess learning. There is so much encouragement for success for each student, but in order to understand the diversity of each student; standardized test had to be created. Each student learns different, but it is important to make sure that his or her needs are being met. Let me provide you with some history regarding standardized testing to have the truth. It began in the early 1900s in order to determine individual intelligence quotient (Fletcher, 2009). During WWI, the army needed a way to determine whether or not the soldiers were officer material (Fletcher, 2009). Standardized testing has developed dramatically over a period of time.

Work Cited

Fletcher, D. (2009, December 11). Standardized Testing. Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1947019,00.html

Popham, W. (2014). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

List of standardized tests in the United States. (2015, May 1). Retrieved May 20, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_standardized_tests_in_the_United_States

Grouping students is a method that is very important in the classroom. There is an influence that helps understand how to group the students. The Unit Plan created in ED 605 was based on the content area of biology with emphasis on cell division. The activities planned for students included individual and group assignments.

Understanding how to group students in a classroom creates an en effective school, effective teacher, academic achievement, perceptions of self and others, motivation, attitudes toward school, and friendships and interactions in school and the classroom. It contributes to more positive academic and affective outcomes in regards to students. When considering how to group students, it is important to understand the diverse personalities that are in the classroom. Students are created into small groups for a portion of time. I would consider the different sorts of learning goals and tasks, evaluate student performance and maintain group collaboration for different periods of time. Grouping is used to make sure that all students learn, increase student engagement, teach students how to work with others, facilitate social interaction among students, motivate students, improve students’ self-concepts and attitudes toward their self and school, and teach students how to learn in different ways. In order to be effective in grouping, the following must be completed: teacher pre-planning and preparation, tasks to be completed, group size, group composition, roles and responsibilities, advance training for students, effective teaching skills, clarity, monitoring, reinforcement and feedback, substantive teacher time, evaluation, review of group composition, permanence of group, teacher perceptions and expectations and group assignment, importance of group placement, instruction in pull-out groups versus regular classroom instruction, and changes in the role of the teacher required by instructional groups.

The activity regarding the unit plays a role in determining how students will work together and what strategy is best for it. It is important to make sure that the students are grouped with people that he or she gets along with in order to prevent any problems that may occur within the classroom. It is also important to consider the level of the student so he or she can be paired with someone who can help encourage thinking and learning. An example of this would be if I had a student that had difficulties with biology, I would partner this student with someone who is doing very well so he or she could help explain the material for the student to understand. This allows a sense of tutoring and an opportunity for the student to feel comfortable asking questions. It is important to also consider the skills of the students so they could be grouped based on similar skills and interests. In regards to STEM education, considering students reading and writing skills can help determine who to group them with. It is important to emphasize building reading and writing skills within the classroom to help students succeed in the classroom and other classes as well.

Problems can occur if teachers do not have a clear understanding of how to group students. For example, when I was in high school we were allowed to pick our own groups so it left some people struggling to find a part and caused communication issues. Also, there was a time in high school when a teacher partnered a student with another student that he recently had issues with so this lead to confrontation. The teacher should always be aware of what is going on in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Problems can lead to a decrease in academic activity and motivation in the classroom, which reflects on performance as a teacher. This causes the classroom to be disrupted leading to the lesson lacking effective and efficient workflow.

TEXT	Text Citation or Link	Rationale for Choosing	Text Frame(s)	Strategies Used and Resource
Biodiversity	Studying how climate affects biodiversity	The article emphasizes the affects that climate and human changes have on biodiversity. The article explains how advanced mathematical calculations provided an understanding of an investigation that could not be measured before.	Cause/effect Compare/contrast Problem/solution	Quick-Writes (Buehl book)

Bacteria	How a bacterial cell recognizes its own DNA	This article describes the process of DNA replication and repair by using bacteria versus viruses as an example. It provides important information to understand how the CRISPR system has an impact on our lives now and will continue into the future. Students will be able to apply the information to current and future real world situations.	Cause/Effect Goal/Action/Outcome	Hands-On Reading (Buehl book)
Atoms	How many gold atoms make gold metal?	Explains how the development of technology encourages new information that can be applied in real-world situations. This article examines changes in the electronic properties of nanometer-sized pieces of gold, which can be used in short-term storage of energy or even electric charge so this information is being used to develop bioimaging and sensing. This article discusses how technology proposes a new	Synthesizing Compare/contrast	Discussion Web (McLaughlin & Buehl)

The three text words that the three articles cover are the following: biodiversity, bacteria, and atoms. Graphic organizers can be used to help with the understanding of these texts individually or even cohesively as a reading strategy. Graphic organizers help students classify ideas and develop their communication skills to become more effective. It also helps with structuring their writing and to encourage problem solving, decision-making, studying, brainstorming and planning research.

For the first text of biodiversity, it was used in an article known as “Studying how climate affects biodiversity” by using the quick-writes strategy. Quick-Writes is a very useful strategy allows students to have a certain amount of time to quickly gather their thoughts together regarding some aspect of a course study. This is a great strategy when dealing with text content such as biodiversity. Quick-Writes is a strategy that follows some ground rules, which are the following: students are informed about time parameters, students are expected to begin writing immediately and use the time period that is given, students quickly capture thoughts as they respond to the writing prompts, students should not be concerned about their writing form, and students may be asked to share their Quick-Writes with a peer. In order to perform Quick-Writes the teacher must form a purpose. The next step is to consider using a stimulus in order to introduce the Quick-Writes, which helps encourage students’ thinking regarding an important aspect in a unit of study and to provide some focus. After this step, teachers should be aware that Quick-Writes could be open ended to allow students to write down their thoughts as they respond to the stimulus.

Example of Quick-Writes:

            Using the hands-on reading as a graphic organizer can help better understand the second concept of bacteria. Hands-On Reading helps build Quick-Writes and focus on their reading skills versus the writing skills that Quick-Writes expands on. To perform Hands-On Reading the teacher must first introduce technical nonfiction. The reader will then adopt reading strategies that are tailored towards comprehension of technical material by brainstorming with student’s problems. he next step is to outline the Hands-On Reading. It is really important to emphasize the following students for Hands-On Reading to students: size up the task (survey the text to understand a goal and objective), clarify vocabulary (key terms in the text and which ones are important to the student’s learning), scan the visuals (view the visual information to help understand the information), look out for cautions (if steps are ignored this could lead to error), read and apply (read, clarify the message, and apply information), and collaborate (interact with fellow leaners). Finally students will work with partners in order to read and apply information through collaboration to help with their understanding of the complex text.

Example of Hands-On Reading:

            For the final concept of atoms, discussion web would be the most appropriate graphic organizer to use. This allows an evaluation between teacher and peers to see how well the students understand the text information and concepts. It also allows them to build off of the information that is shared. Discussions have the opportunity to reflect two sides to every question provided. Students will decode the main ideas of the article by examining interrelationships of the details or ideas. The teacher can assign the students to work in partners in order to develop different views towards the question(s). The teacher can encourage the students to work together to develop a consensus towards the question(s). The teacher can allow a person from each group to justify their conclusion. Each student can be encouraged to write his or her own personal view statements by reflecting on the discussion web. A discussion web is an opportunity where students learn to collaborate with peers and teachers in order to answer questions and statements to facilitate a debate. Teachers can evaluate the effectiveness of the information and student performance.

Example of discussion web:

            When evaluating all three graphic organizers, I found the most useful one to be Quick-Writes in regards to texts. It allows an opportunity to make changes to how it can be used. It helps all students of different needs to write down their thoughts within a given time for the teacher to evaluate their understanding. This helps the teacher understand where he or she needs to begin and develop what strategy will be used to get there. Students can help differentiate different ideas by outlining certain text, writing in different colors, and developing many ideas by incorporating information from other peers. I like the idea that Quick-Writes provides an opportunity for students to place their initial thought down to argue the questions and information provided by the teacher. This allows students to express their personal ideas and discussion. It allows students to be independent thinkers. It also allows students to go back to their initial Quick-Writes after they have further into the lesson and see how they have expanded their understanding. What I love about Quick-Writes is that it gives the teacher feedback and an understanding of the level of understanding the student has.

Work Cited

Buehl, D., (2014) Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, 4^th ed. International Reading Association.

Weizmann Institute of Science. (2015, April 13). How a bacterial cell recognizes its own DNA. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 18, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150413130825.htm

Uppsala Universitet. (2015, April 16). Studying how climate affects biodiversity. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 20, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150416132038.htm

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Comprehending Content Area Text. In Content area reading: Teaching and learning for college and career readiness (2nd ed., pp. 57-62). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland). (2015, April 10). How many gold atoms make gold metal?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 11, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150410083516.htm