● Student who made 100% on the pre-test
This student came in mid-way through the semester from a magnet school in Texas. She is well
ahead of her peers in reading and math skills. She got a perfect score on her pre-test so I knew
she knew the general information we would be going over. Because the rest of the class
majority scored around 50% I decided not to change the content as a whole, but to differentiate
for that individual student. While she was answering questions during the whole group and
doing assignments and even in centers I did what I could to challenge her. I asked her some
harder questions to extend beyond “what does it look like” or “what is it” to “How do you think it
formed?” “What do you think we use it for? Why?” The other students needed more basic
knowledge of landforms and maps before they were ready to answer these questions. There
were a couple of other students who scored above 50 but not quite reaching the 80 benchmark.
I was able to include them in the advanced questioning, but not to the extent that AM could
answer. I also challenged her to make our map of the playground to add things to her map that
weren’t on the key. She wrote the word “Key” and added the extra things that she drew to it.
She rose to every challenge I gave her and she learned a lot from the unit even though she
knew many of the answers to the assessments beforehand.
● Small Group Assessment
There were a few students who were struggling with the pre/post test. They were a
little lost as I was giving directions to the whole class. Some students vocalized their frustration,
while others just sat and looked at the paper or scribbled aimlessly all over it. I pulled a small
group with AR, JP, KW, MM, and SR. One of these students is ESL and needed things
rephrased a few times with some extra wait time in between questions. SR and MM both just
needed the task broken up for them one step at a time. JP and KW showed before that they
really didn’t know what the concepts were. KW showed significant improvement from 33%-83%.
He needed a lot of things are-explained and broken down for him throughout the unit. I paired
him with a higher achieving student at centers to help him understand a lot of the things we
were doing.
● Individualized Instruction
JP showed growth from 50-66%. He received explicit one on one instruction throughout the unit.
Any written activity he needed help with. My mentor teacher was able to accommodate him as I
was teaching and working with the majority of the students. Everything JP does has to be one
on one or he doesn’t complete tasks. I have recommended that this child in particular be
recommended for special education because of the amount of teacher directed help he needs to
achieve goals. I think he would benefit from an IEP with specific goals, progress monitoring, and
appropriate accommodations to help the child succeed. Even with one on one instruction he
wasn’t able to reach the goal of 80% for the post-test. He also could not color land green and
water blue on the globe. When I realized he was using different colors I let him redo the
assessment but I only gave him a green crayon and a blue crayon. He was still unable to
accurately color the globe. During the playground map activity, JP actually asked for help which
was a huge advancement for him because he usually would just color all over the page. He
needed me to point to things one at a time to tell him where to start and what to draw. I went
over the symbols on his map key and pointed to them in real life so he could connect the map to
what he was looking at in person. Even with the help JP only got 2/5 of the map key items onto
his map.
