Michelle Lawless

Multiple teacher reflection

PEI
2/11/16

Assessments are one of the most important aspects of teaching

because they guide our instruction. Assessments should be consistent,
ongoing, and purposeful. In our classes we have learned about a multitude of
assessments, but being able to see what the teachers use in the classroom
here at Trace was very beneficial.
The first assessment we were able to hear spoke about was the PNOA
for Kindergarten. I have heard the term PNOA multiple times in first grade
meanings, but I never knew exactly what is was. I now know that PNOA
stands for Primary Number and Operation Assessment and its given to all
students in primary grades. There are multiple sections to this test and it
assesses a variety of skills in math. I like this assessment because its easy to
follow and straight forward for kids. It seems rather short especially if a
teacher breaks it up into sections. A downfall to this assessment is that it
takes away a teachers instruction time during the day. If teacher are
constantly having to give this assessment everyday, they could be losing up
to an hour of instruction time. The only time I could think of that would be
good to give this assessment to students is during the morning from 7:30 to
8:00, but then again many students do not arrive at school that early and its

also a time for the students to wake up and get ready to learn. Students
need that time to adjust to being at school and get ready for the day instead
of jumping right into tests. I do, however, think this assessment is purposeful
in the report it gives back to the teachers about the students.
I was glad Ms. Pegowski talked to us about a Running Record
because I know we will be doing those this semester as well as when we are
teachers. Ives en a few of Mrs. Bowens running records on her students and
they seem to give a lot of crucial information back to the teacher. Similar to
the PNOA, this takes up a lot of instruction time so teachers have to also
work around their schedule to give these assessments. It was good to hear
that Mrs. Pegowski does help the students sometimes and will even give
them a second opinion. Im looking forward to giving this assessment not
only to learn how to give this assessment, but because it gives me a deeper
understanding of my students.
The title 1 teachers spoke about many different things. but they
really talked about istation. I was not familiar with istation until this morning
in morning intervention. Im currently working with 2 third graders and we
have been asked to have them do a math assessment on istation. On this
app, the students choose what subject they want to work in. They will begin
an assessment and try and answer the questions to the best of their abilities.
There are several missions and each test is a mission when they are all
done their classroom teacher can pull it up on the board to show the class
stats. I really like this app because it makes these assessments fun. They are

getting to use their chrome books, but also its makes it into a competitive
game where they want to have the highest score in the class. I think this app
creates healthy competition for these students, which a lot of elementary
students dont get.
The last assessment types we heard about were standardized
testing such as the ACT aspire. We were firs tasked to complete a simple 5
question test, which surprisingly had difficult questions on it. There was one
question that almost everyone missed except a few students and it really
opened my eyes to how tricky and manipulating these tests can be. Students
have to be very intentional and careful when reading and choosing answer
choices and those are test strategies I feel like most teachers do not teach. I
knew the math and I had the kills to complete the equations, but I rushed
through it and didnt pay attention ot all the details in the questions like
many of my students will. This taught me the importance of teaching test
taking strategies on top of those math skills. I enjoyed looking at the student
test data and wondered what type of software they used to organize the data
in that way. It was easy to read and manipulate to find what we needed. This
type of data really shows the teacher what they need to be focusing on in
this classroom and the more regular the data comes, the better.
Assessments are always beneficial to learn about whether youre a
preservice teacher or a principal. Assessments drive our instruction and at
Trace Crossings they really take it seriously, as should all schools. By their

use of all the data, I can tell that Trace Crossings is a school that really loves
their students and want to do whatever it takes to help them.