Anthony Petraitis

EPS 513

EPS 513 Final Paper

1. Knowledge youve gained from formative assessments: What was the student learning
question around which you focused this formative assessment? Describe the formative
assessment and the norms and routines around the use of this assessment in your classroom.
What were the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment and the routines around using
it? How does it relate to other assessments that your students must take (e.g. unit or interim
assessments)? Describe the consequential validity of this formative assessment for your students.
(6 points)

Academic language and content knowledge/skill are generally the focus of assessments in
most classrooms. What is not usually assessed is the thinking process of students. Therefore, this
research has been chosen to do just that. This research on formative assessment is looking at
how students think and process as they choose a topic to write about. My students examined and
explored different perspectives and arguments on topics that we discussed in class. The students
have to analyze which argument/perspective is most "correct" to them and explain why. They
exhibited their thinking through discussions (small group and whole class) and in their writing.
By focusing on how they think through different perspectives, it allowed me to assess how they
processed the information and their ability to synthesize the information.
The formative assessment was in the form of an exit ticket or a processing piece after a
reading. Both assessments directed the students to respond to reading about multiple perspectives
on topic. The topics dealt with the different aspects of poverty and its effects on people and
education. The students would have to choose a side of the differing perspectives and explain
their reasoning by using evidence and counter arguing the other side. The activity of writing after
reading a piece of text was routine by the time these assessments were given. The students were
ready and prepared to write their thoughts down in the form of a paragraph after reading.
However, the new skill that the students were learning was creating a counterargument to
strengthen their writing and their argument ability. When the students are able to think of
arguments on both sides of a topic, they are more informed and they can make an educated
decision.
Since the focus was on the student's metacognition, the students had to write down their
thinking process and how they were reasoning. This was not a routine part of the classroom.
Although there are times in the classroom when I try to have my students think about what they
are doing and about their schema, I have not previously made it a routine for my students.
However, my students were given time to build this skill as well as certain supports to get them
to think in a reflective manner.
The reasoning for assessing their metacognition on how they are choosing sides of an
argument is that the students have to write argumentatively for their unit test, in other classes, for
the ACT, and will have to in their future endeavors. Since I have juniors, the ACT is the test on
which I am preparing my students to be successful. The ACT is reintroducing writing to the test
and the students will have to take statements that may be out of context and write a valid
argument. A part of what will be assessed is how the students create an argument. In order for
my students to be prepared for this, they have to be able to process through and be cognizant of
multiple perspectives.
After these assessments and ones that follow, my students should be able to become
skilled at understanding their thinking when it comes to building arguments (and
counterarguments). The students will be able to use the feedback by understanding what they
need to do and how to do it. As teacher, I learned where my students were coming from and how
they were constructing arguments. I was able to understand the needs of my students and what I
needed to do to build their skills to the level where they need to be for the ACT and to be college
ready.
2. Knowledge youve gained through data representations and data workshops: Include data
representations, such as charts or tables, that allow one to see all three iterations of formative
assessment results. How do these representations help your understanding of your students
learning and performance in the area in which you focused (academic language, content
knowledge/skill, or metacognition)? Please speak to whole class performance, and at least one
individual student. In what ways did the data workshops contribute to your understand your
students learning? (8 points)

This research started because of an assessment on my students writing indicated that they needed
to learn how to make a counterargument. As depicted below in the chart, the students are able to
write about their own opinions while supporting themselves with evidence. The students also are
able to explain the evidence well. However, the students are not able to fully put their thoughts to
the bigger picture of the topic which is shown in the evaluate section of the chart. In
connection with not being able to apply their thoughts to the larger topic, the students were not
able to fully comprehend the different perspectives on the topics and thusly not able to create
successful counterarguments. This was not an individual student or a small group deficiency but
most of my students needed to build their skills in doing this. This was clearly a skill in which
the students had not much background. Thus, the students would need to be taught explicitly
what the process is to successfully master the skill.




Thus I needed to create an assessment which focused on the students process and see
what they were thinking about before fully deciding on a plan to teach them to see the bigger
picture on a topic and the different perspectives on a topic. I decided to give my students
assessments (exit tickets) to have them not only practice writing counterarguments but also to
have them write down their reasoning for choosing the one side over the other.
Having the student write down their reasoning let me know what they were thinking
when they were deciding on their choice. I decided to focus on one class rather than all of my
classes for this data. I wanted to focus on a select group of students who I know are at different
levels of writing skills. This will allow for a heterogeneous data sample in which I can use to
shape my understanding of my students.
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The graph below shows the findings of the assessment that focused on the reasoning of
the students. As you can see there are students who are able to write a counterargument which
meets standards (which are based on a rubric from Common Core). These students are able to
argue against a statement if they are given the information and a possible argument. However,
these same students are not able explain their reasoning on why they chose their
counterargument. Thus this data tells me that they can follow a formula but are not conscious
about what they are doing when writing in such a manner.







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Knowing that my students needed to be more aware of their thinking and conscious about their
choices, I decided to implement more exit tickets that asked the students to answer questions about
their metacognition. After my students started to understand the importance of being cognizant when
they write, I gave a similar assessment to the previous one to see if they improved upon their
metacognitive skills. As shown below, the improvement is easily noticeable. Not only did the students
improve on their writing of counterarguments but also on their ability to explain their reasoning and the
importance of their reasoning. They were able to articulate the different perspectives on the topic and
articulate why they agreed with one side over the other. It is clear that when the students know what
the process they should be going through, they understand the skill better and are able to perform more
successfully.


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3. Knowledge synthesis: What have you learned about the progression of your students
learning? How did the formative assessment process, data analysis and representation, and data
workshops in class contribute to your understanding of student learning?

Although assessing and improving on metacognition is not always focused on in the
classroom (mostly because it is difficult to do), it plays an important role in students learning.
The more aware students are about their own thinking processes, the more they will be able to
understand what they are doing and what they need to be doing to become more successful.
Creating the data charts and discussing my findings with my colleagues greatly helped me
clarify my ideas and gave more insight on mode of thinking about my students. Also the
students seemed to learn from the feedback of the assessment because I was transparent
about what I was trying to get them to learn and gave them actionable feedback (Heritage).
The students knew where they were, what they could do, and where they needed to go.

4. Implications for formative assessment: What further questions do you have about students
learning progressions in this domain? What are the implications for further refinement of the
formative assessment of your students learning to better investigate these questions? (8 points)

Although this research has shown success in improving the students ability to be more
reflective on their thinking, I would like to know if the students will use the process in another
content or even when working on another skill. Do the students see this process as something
they can apply anywhere? Students need to know that it is important to be reflective on their
thinking when performing any task. Some implications to make sure or at least to have the
students see the explicit correlations to any content, the assessment could have a piece asking the
students to make the leap and identify how the same process can be used anywhere. As always I
will try to keep focusing on giving my students time to work on their metacognition and point
out important times when they should be reflective on their thinking. As a teacher I need to do
the same in order to understand how to teach such a skill.