Coleman 1 Brooke Coleman Dr.

Carr EDUC 450-01 20 November 2013 Assessment Analysis The assessment that I made is for 3rd grade students in Social Studies. The SOL that is being covered is 3.11 The student will explain the importance of the basic principles that form the foundation of a republican form of government by b) identifying the contributions of George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; Abraham Lincoln; Rosa Parks; Thurgood Marshall; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Cesar Chavez; c) recognizing that Veterans Day and Memorial Day honor people who have served to protect the countrys freedoms. My SMART Goal for this assessment and unit is, During the spring of 2014, 90% of the 3rd graders at South River Elementary School will score at least 85% on their end of unit assessment on important historical figures and two important days celebrated in the United States. I had ten random students on Bridgewater Colleges campus take this assessment as if they were really taking a 3rd grade assessment in Social Studies. After looking back at who I gave the assessment to, I gave it to all seniors. However, I did give the assessment to people who have different majors. I gave the assessment to four Psychology majors, three Business majors, one Sociology major, one Art major, and one Health and Exercise Sciences major. I purposefully did not give the assessment to any History or Political Science majors because I knew that they would know all of the answers since they are currently studying the material. After grading

Coleman 2 everyones assessment, I found out that I reached my goal for this particular set of students. I had a 100 % of my students pass with an 85 or better. When I began looking at the breakdown of my assessment scores and which questions students missed, I noticed that students were missing the same questions. While I was thinking of what format I wanted the test to be, I knew that I wanted multiple choices because that is the standard for the SOL tests. I also wanted to have a few short answer definitions because the SOLs are now gearing towards having some questions that are short answer. I thought that this would be a good way to get students familiar with the layout of a SOL test. I also wanted to include matching because I knew that I wanted to ask students questions about the vocabulary that we talked about throughout the unit and that was the easiest way that I was able to come up and have students understand and know each vocabulary definition. I noticed that while grading the assessments, everyone got all of the matching correct. From a teacher stand point, I thought that there would be a few students that missed some of them because a lot of students have trouble with matching, especially definitions. I assume that students used the strategy of process of elimination. This is a strategy that I will encourage students to use when they are taking their SOL tests in May. As for the short answer portion of the test, I know that I should have made the directions a little more clear because I had students who were confused about what I was asking and how exactly to define the word, especially right and privilege. I did not realize that college students would have so much trouble defining the two. I would say that most of my students told me that it was really hard to define right and privilege. After hearing a majority of students say this, I have decided to say that when I give this test to my students, I will re-write the directions and tell

Coleman 3 them that they may right examples of what a right is and what a privilege is. As for the other short answer questions, everyone seemed to get them right except for a few people who had the concept but did not really give an accurate definition. The multiple choice section of the assessment is where most students missed points. There were two students who did not know that Cesar Chavez is best known for being a migrant worker. I can understand that this may be hard, because I do not remember studying Chavez when I was in elementary, middle, or high school. Another common question that students seemed to miss was who helped to put the new principles of the new nation into place. Many of the students who got this question wrong said that Thomas Jefferson helped to put the new principles into practice and there were one or two who said that Abraham Lincoln did. I was shocked to see that only 4 out of 10 people got this question correct. After looking through and seeing that more than half of students missed this question, I believe that it would be easier to reword this question. I like this question and believe that when I give this assessment to my students in my student teaching, they will know that George Washington helped to put the new principles in the new nation into practice. We will have just gone over this information so I believe that they will do fairly well on this. Another multiple choice question that more than half of students got wrong was what Rosa Parks did during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. Everyone who got this question wrong said that Rosa Parks only gave up her seat on a public bus seat. When I noticed that everyone put that answer, I realized that a lot of people did not read through the rest of the answers before picking that answer. The correct answer was all of the above. I chose to include an all of the above question because that is something that the SOL tests try to do to trick to students. I want to be able to prepare them for the SOL tests as much as

Coleman 4 I possibly can. When I give this to my students, I will make sure to really emphasize to read each answer and question carefully when going through the test. I think that my assessment does a really good job of preparing students for the SOL tests that they are going to be taking in May. There are a few questions that I want to change and a few directions that I want to emphasize and change so that students can do as best as possible on the test. Since this is the first unit that I will be teaching when I get to student teaching, I am going to leave the test the way it is (except for the above minor changes) to see how well students do. After I see how well students do I will make tests that better fit their needs so that they will do well on the tests but also prepare them for the SOL tests. My goal is to use my assessments in student teaching to better prepare students to take the SOL tests because I know that they are such a big part of society and school. I want them all to pass so that they do not get discouraged after finding out that they failed one of the tests. I know that making assessments comes with practice and that I only have time to improve making assessments for students and preparing them for the SOL tests.

Coleman 5 Graph of Correct and Incorrect Answers from Students Question Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Number of Students with Correct Answers 10 8 10 10 10 10 10 4 10 4 8 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Number of Students with Incorrect Answers 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 6 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0