Tuesday, April 24

Today we learned a lot of great random bits of information. For starters, we learned some background of standardized tests. All throughout my high school career we had to take various standardized tests, so much so that it was just accepted as a part of what we do. Today in class we learned about the first types of standardized tests, like where they originated from and what their original purpose was. It was so interesting!

Also, we learned what the letters in IQ stand for (Intelligence Quotient) and how the scores for that are fairly stable. At one point we discussed opinions on whether or not an IQ score could change. Personally, I think that an IQ score is more of a second-nature type thing that cannot be altered enough to say that it was changed in the first place. However, I'm sure with a little hard work one could boost their score a few points. Then again, what does it really matter any way?

This class has most definitely not been what I expected, but it's been a good one. I really have enjoyed completing Project 2 and am grateful for the time we've had to work in groups. Making out the test was kind of fun - I almost felt like a real teacher! Anyway, hopefully this habit of reflecting will continue.

James 3:1 says, "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall reeve a stricter judgement." Even though this verse is talking more about teachers of the Word, it's a good reminder of the seriousness of our task as mind-molders. I'm thankful for this class and how it has helped me develop some important teaching skills.

Thursday, April 19

We met in our small groups today to finalize the last little bit left of project 2. As we were sitting there working through things, it was kind of neat to see that working together over these past few weeks has made us friends. I really hope that the other groups have had just as good of an experience working together as ours has.
After we talked through what's left, we decided to make the portfolio an individual assessment and the performance assessment a group project. We spent most of our time determining what we should do about the two assessments. I believe we started off by over-thinking what the questions wanted from us, but eventually came to understand what we were to do.

Tuesday, April 17

It seemed like a long time since we had last been in the classroom. With all of the end-of-the-year stuff going on, it's getting more and more difficult to separate things out on the timeline. Anyway, today we had some housekeeping-type things to talk through as a class, like when certain things will be due and what these next few weeks are going to be like. I think that taking the time periodically to make sure that everyone is on the same page is a good idea, not just so that we know when things are due but also that we are able to see how things are going. It was nice to have that time.
After that, we went over chapters 17 and 18. Chapter 17 was focused on what it means to create a reliable test as well as how to do that. Chapter 18 was mostly about test error and the fact that every test, no matter how small, will contain some degree of error within. These are some things to keep in mind for the future creation of tests.

Thursday, April 12

We took class time to meet with our subject area groups today to work on Project 2. Today we have finally reached the point of creating the actual test, so that was kind of exciting. We divided the questions among ourselves and decided to email what we come up with individually to each other before Sunday. Thinking up different questions is going to be a learning experience. This is kind of like when my sisters and I were little and we played school on the back porch of our old house. Every once in a while we would have "tests," although I don't believe we took the time to ensure that we were writing questions at any of the DOK levels.

Tuesday, April 10

We sure had a jam-packed day today, starting with graduate student research and ending with questions about Project 1, with a test review in there somewhere too. I really like the fact that we review the tests we take and go over the reason why certain answers are correct and why others are not. We talked about Project 1, which is basically just writing a letter to the parents of a child whose test scores we have been given to interpret. I hope that as a teacher in the future there will be time to do this for each of my children.

Thursday, April 5

Today I was thinking we would come in, talk about the test we took Tuesday, and leave. Instead we went over correlations and scatterplots and the different ways variables can be related. It was fun to have open discussion about some different relationships we see in life. One that particularly stood out to me was as the number of tests in a day increases, the grades on those tests decreases and the stress level increases. Oh, so true. We also talked about being careful when making assumptions about data that appear to be related. Just because a relationship appears to exist does not mean that it actually does. We said that the actual cause of the relationship may be another factor entirely. This was probably what happened in the case of the larger-foot children having larger vocabularies. Age might have actually been the factor in this.

Tuesday, April 3

Test Day: Round 2. The test itself was not too bad. As always, there were a few questions that I wasn't quite certain about, but overall it was a good test. It was nice to work through the math problems, like solving a logic puzzle. It still seems ironic to be taking a test in a class about testing. One of the problems required us to flip to the back of the page to get the information to solve it, and I remember talking about how we should avoid doing that because it stresses the test taker out. After experiencing that, I'll try to make sure to avoid that when creating tests of my own.

Thursday, March 29

Today this class was spent practicing some problems for the test Tuesday. I was not present, though. My little sister had a tennis match in Laurel so some friends and I went to watch her play. After a few wrong exits we finally made it to the park! It was a close match, but she and her doubles partner won in overtime. Go Knights! As a future teacher, I think it's really important to be supportive of my students outside of the classroom in order to better help them prepare for the tests of life.

Tuesday, March 27

Today we talked about some more statistics as well as some different types of calculations, like determining the z-score and the T-score, and the variance. Honestly, I was not really sure what was going on today, but I decided to definitely give it a look over later. We are supposed to have a practice day Thursday before the test, so hopefully it will make more sense then.

Thursday, March 22

Today we met in our small groups again to create our test blueprint. I thought this was going to take a really long time, but in reality it only took about thirty minutes! It's good to know that it doesn't take very long to create something so useful. When we were talking about this in class the other day, I was thinking about how it sounded like something that would become kind of a hassle. However, this really wasn't too bad. I had a lot of fun working together today. I really hope whatever school I get placed at has a good group of science teachers to collaborate with.

Tuesday, March 20

So, today we talked about Statistics. It was a long chapter - very informative, but long. When we talked about distributions, at first it was a little confusing to understand the negative and the positives. After a few times of going over it though, it started to make sense. I can see how better understanding statistics would be beneficial as a future teacher. Also, it was good to go over percentiles. That's always been one of those terms that I've heard but have never understood. In other news, it's the first day of spring! We had a really nice picnic earlier today.

Thursday, March 8

After not meeting on Tuesday, it felt a little strange to be back in the classroom at first. We covered Chapter 12, which is all about marks. We discussed how a mark is a measure of student achievement and so should not take into account things like behavior. Also, we talked about how different areas use different grading scales (i.e. an 'A' at one school may not be an 'A' at another school because of the different normal values that represent letter grades). We turned in our project from Tuesday. All in all, it wasn't a too bad kind of class period.

Tuesday, March 6

Instead of meeting for lecture, today our class met within our content area groups to begin working on Project 2. Our assignment for the day was to complete parts A and B. We wrote out some objectives for DOK levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 and then checked that they each meet certain requirements. It took us a little while to determine what topic we wanted to cover, but eventually we decided to create a test on the seven major terrestrial biomes. It was nice to collaborate with other "teachers" to complete a project. As we worked, it felt as if we were really doing this at some school, that we were in actuality seated around some spare table in a teacher's lounge and planning a unit for the next few weeks. Days like today make me realize how exciting it's going to be to finally be able to create plans for my own students.

Thursday, March 1

Today has been a LONG day, but this class was pretty interesting! We went into a lot of detail about how to create a test. This is the kind of stuff I've been expecting us to talk about all along, so it was neat to have finally reached this point. We talked in depth about ensuring that the test has validity and different factors that could impair test validity. I had never really considered the importance of ensuring test validity nor the factors that go into it. We went over the difficulty level and the discrimination index as well, but I was nodding off a little and decided to be sure that I looked over this later. Near the end of class we got into our content area groups to talk about project 2. I think we have a good group! We'll meet for the first time on Tuesday so we shall see how everything goes.

Tuesday, February 28

Today we began by dividing into small groups to discuss our journal articles. I really enjoy the time within our small groups because it is always so interesting to hear from people of different licensure areas! We had a social studies, a music, a math, and a biology (myself), so it was a good conglomeration of subjects. After going through each article, we came back to the topic of removing the arts from schools and the effects thereof on the students (which was the journal topic brought up by the music licensure classmate). We discussed how it does not really improve test scores as was the original purpose but may actually discourage students from attending school. Our group discussed how some students come to school just to participate in the activities, like band or sports, that do not necessarily have a basis in athletics. By removing the arts, our group believes that this serves to harm students more than it helps them.

After our group discussion, we returned to the total class setting and reviewed the chapter 10 powerpoint on portfolio assessment. As Dr. Dearman said, it was a "short but very important chapter." Dr. Dearman pointed out how portfolios are beneficial in any subject to measure student higher order thinking. Although important, they do not replace general tests. We talked about how students need various forms of assessment and how they need to be incorporating different medias and technologies. From what I now understand, a portfolio is useful because it is essentially various forms of student work put together in such a way that it serves to measure student progress and growth. A portfolio sounds a lot like the sketch book we used in 9th grade art. We started off with the basics, like shading and simple shapes, and progressed into more diverse forms of drawing, like the use of the various forms of lines. Now it's really neat to look back and see the progression and remember how far we came through that class, to really be able to see how much we learned. It is one of my greatest treasures from high school now. I can see how a portfolio would be a cool motivational tool for students. I think that a portfolio will wind up in the curriculum of my future classroom in some form or fashion.

Thursday, February 23

Today we went over chapters 8 and 9 after not coming to class Tuesday due to Mardi Gras break.

Chapter 8 was about the structure and use of higher order test items. I remember how in school our teachers would so often give us our essay questions verbatim ahead of time. As we talked about the purpose of essay questions today, I began to think about how I would not want to give so much away to my students if the whole purpose is to test their thinking on a higher level. Certainly it would be allowable to give them an idea of what might be asked so that they know which topics to review most thoroughly, but I do not intend to give my future students the test questions word for word as has been my experience in the past. I liked what we discussed about asking in an essay question for evidence to support the answer so as to ensure that the students are not just shooting the bull. Another interesting point made today was that open book tests should not be word for word but instead designed so that the text book and notes are a resource instead of an answer bank.

In chapter 9, we talked about performance based assessment. One thing that we got talking about was how, for every lesson, there must be at least four multi-motile activities to support it within a two-day period of time. This concept was interesting to me. I can see how it would be a wise thing to do as a teacher to ensure that the students are truly understanding what is being taught. I hope to incorporate this in my future classroom.

Thursday, February 16

Today instead of going over chapters 8 and 9 we were able to just discuss our tests and leave a little early. I was glad we took the time to go over our tests because it helped me understand why certain answers were wrong and why some were right. I will try to incorporate time to review tests in my future classroom so that my students will understand as well. Also, it might help them to understand the test format better so they can be better prepared for tests to come. After all, the purpose of testing is to see what the students know, not to confuse them.

Tuesday, February 14

Today we had our first test. I did not think it was too hard, but it was more thorough than I expected. I enjoyed being able to think out my answers to the discussion questions.

Thursday, February 9

So, in class today we talked about how our objectives are to be the focus of our classes, about how we are to create different instructional outcomes that challenge our students to use higher levels of thinking. We talked about Bloom's Taxonomy and how we are to be able to write objectives to the different levels. I am really enjoying this class because it is making me think about what will be expected of me as a teacher, about the high standards I am to hold myself to in order to be an effective teacher for my students. This class is making me think about all of the different things that go into preparing a lesson for effective teaching. The other thing we talked about today was the different formats that could be used to create a test.  I had never really thought about how much time it takes to create a multiple choice question. After discussing the formats today, I think the best kinds of tests are those that use a variety of formats. This past semester my genetics class used a variety of questions, and I remember having to really know my stuff for those tests. Knowing that those tests were so thorough made me apply myself for that class, and so in the future I think that incorporating a variety of questions will be the most effective way of testing my students.

Tuesday, February 7

Today we did not meet face to face. Instead we were to complete the chapter 6 assignment sent by email. We just recently began discussing objectives in my Methods for Science Teachers class, so it was neat to reinforce discussions in my other class with an assignment in this one. I found the second question challenging and kind of exciting because I really enjoyed thinking about what kinds of objectives I'll be writing in the future. Also, I like the idea of using a test blueprint even though it sounds like it would be really time consuming. In the end I think a blueprint would prove to be worthwhile. On a side note, I've enjoyed not having to meet in class face to face when we have other work to do. I think it's refreshing to do work outside and come even better prepared to discussion the following class period.

Thursday, February 2

Today we discussed chapter 4 and 5. We talked about the purpose of testing and how important it is to make tests that are fair and measure what is discussed in class. Most of the class period was spent discussing criterion and norm referenced testing and where the overall goals of testing come from. Also, we discussed how important it is that tests are unbiased in their word choice so that all students understand what the question is asking. I thought it was an interesting point that some students may not understand what is considered a common reference to others and so may influence how a student does on a test. This class made me think about the time and effort that goes into creating tests that measure students fairly.

Tuesday, January 31

Today we began the class period with a discussion of our assignment from Chapter 3 which deals with RTI. Before answering the homework questions, I had never really understood what this mysterious RTI was. Having a mom in the school system means that I had at least heard the term before, but I had never questioned its meaning or how it could potentially affect my level of instruction. 

RTI, as I now understand it, is actually a useful tool implemented in the classroom to identify students who may require differentiated levels of instruction. This could simply mean that the student needs extra help with literacy or it could be as severe as determining whether or not they should be placed in a special needs classroom. Before reading this chapter I did not realize that so much was already in place to determine whether students need help or not. I just assumed that teachers or counselors who knew the student before suggested that a student would need extra help. 

After our discussion of RTI, we divided into groups to discuss the journal article concerning high stakes testing that was due today. I really enjoyed dividing into groups and discussing the different articles that we had each researched. I think it was more of a learning experience to discuss the articles with my peers than if we had just turned the assignments in because it was insightful to hear their comments as well as the teacher's additions. Perhaps this will be a strategy I can implement into my classroom someday.

Thursday, January 26

Today has been the first real Thursday of the school year. After having so much to do in so little time, I wasn't as prepared for class as I should have been. I didn't have the power points for chapters 1 and 2 printed off, but thankfully Natalie did so we were able to look at them together. I really enjoyed discussing the No Child Left Behind act and high stakes testing. In all my years of high school I never understood, never really understood, what these things were or how they affected me as a student. Now I can see that so much more goes into testing than I ever imagined. Also, I see how important it is to have a full understanding of the system in order to effectively prepare my future students for the tests they will be subjected to.

Tuesday, January 24

This is our third day of class. Just like Thursday we did not meet face to face and were to use this time to work on our outside assignment. At this point I have ordered the book but it has not come in yet, so I am beginning the assignment using information from the internet. Answering the questions from chapter one was fairly easy, but researching the two forms of testing was a little more difficult. I answered that question to the best of my ability but hope that the book will come in before Thursday so that I can answer it more thoroughly.

Thursday, January 19

Today I enjoyed not going to class. When I checked my email and saw that the assignment looked easy, I decided to wait to do it later. Also, at this point I still haven't bought the book because one of my friends might have it, so I think that I will wait until I know whether or not I can get the book before I start the assignment.

Tuesday, January 17

As the first day of class, it was definitely more intimidating than I expected. When I signed up for this class I thought it was going to be a simple, straightforward teaching class. Now I see that there is going to be a lot more expected from us. I see that it will require much more time and effort, and even though that worries me in some ways it also means that this will hopefully be a class in which I learn a lot in. I am looking forward to becoming a better teacher through what this class has to teach me.