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Kayla Sharpe

Student Learning Analysis

Spring 2024

Oakland University

Introduction

In the 12th grade World History/Geography II course, the time period between World

War I and World War II is explored through the lens of three totalitarian leaders: Joseph Stalin,

Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler. I collected data and evidence at the beginning of this unit to

gauge my students’ understanding of the idea of totalitarianism, and how that idea led to horrific

outcomes, specifically the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor) that took place under Joseph Stalin.

In the first section of this paper, you will find the learning goals and state standard

utilized for this specific lesson. The second section displays how the assessment given produced

information useful for conducting a substantive analysis of student understanding. In the third

section, I will demonstrate how the analysis of the assessment produced insights into student

thinking about totalitarianism and its consequences, and how feedback was given to students

who had trouble connecting the idea of totalitarianism to the event of the Holodomor. Next, the

fourth section pertains to how I changed my instruction after the assessment was given, and how

ultimately, immersing the students in a simulation activity helped them describe the idea of

totalitarianism and its effects on Ukraine under Stalin. In the final section, I will explain how an

additional assessment of student understanding was used to determine student growth from their

first assessment.
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Section 1: Learning Goal and Standards

The learning goals that drove this assessment were, “students will be able to describe

totalitarianism” and “students will be able to contextualize how Stalin’s totalitarian policies lead

to the Holodomor.” These learning goals were derived from the Michigan K-12 Standards for

Social Studies, specifically MI.CE.WHG.7.2.2. The standard states, “Interwar Period – analyze

the transformations that shaped world societies between World War I and World War II,

including the economic depression, and the spread of fascism, communism, and nationalism in

different world regions.” This is the single standard for the entire Interwar Period unit, so the

assessment analyzed in this paper only focuses on a single piece of it: how communism

transformed the world in this period.

Section 2: Substantive Analysis of Student Understanding

In the week leading up to spring break, we spent three days focusing on the idea of

totalitarianism, and how that manifested in the Soviet Union with Stalin. The first day featured

an introductory lecture about Totalitarianism and Stalin, followed by the reading of a nonfiction

article from a survivor of the Holodomor. On the second day, a group of 4 students per class

completed their 40 minute long presentation on the Holodomor (this was a part of a larger project

on genocides in the 20th century) followed by a Vox video about the Holodomor. On the final

day before spring break, I provided a more detailed lecture and followed that with a class-wide

review game about Stalin, totalitarianism, and the Holodomor.

The first assessment I gave was on the first day back from spring break. I had anticipated

that some of the information was lost after such a long break, and so this was given to inform

how I should re-teach the content. The assessment contained two written questions: “Describe

totalitarianism” and “How did Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian policies lead to the Holodomor
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(Ukrainian Famine)?” Overall, this assessment showed me that most students (about 80%) were

able to recall that totalitarianism was when one person had complete control over the people of

their nation. Roughly 10% of students answered this question at the level I would expect them to

reach after the re-teaching of the content— these students included the characteristics that make

totalitarianism unique: such as the use of propaganda, the use of secret police forces, and the

reliance on fear and terror to control people. The other 10% were unsure or provided an answer

that was approaching a solid understanding but was not quite there yet. Below are some samples

of the students’ responses at these three levels. The second question of the assessment showed

me that many students (about 60%) were able to recall how the policy of collectivization was

used in Ukraine, and that that led to low output from the farms. Only 5% of students answered

this question at the level I would expect them to after re-teaching— these students made the

observation that the use of collectivization was also political, and was purposefully implemented

to starve Ukrainians since they were Stalin’s biggest enemies. The remainder of students were

either approaching an understanding or were completely unsure.

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Section 3: Analysis of Assessment Data/Student Feedback

After this first analysis, three patterns became apparent to me. The first pattern is

representative of students who were able to define and provide characteristics of totalitarianism

and use that to inform their response about how Stalin’s particular totalitarian policy of

collectivization led to the famine. The second pattern represents students that demonstrated a

basic understanding of totalitarianism but provided no characteristics of it, and were able to

identify one aspect of how totalitarian policies led to the famine, but did not capture the full

story. The final pattern was demonstrative of students who were able to recall one detail or less

about totalitarianism, and did not attempt to answer the famine question or began to approach

understanding of it by including one detail that related to totalitarianism instead of the event of

the famine itself. The student work samples in Section 2 display this array of responses.

Feedback was delivered both individually and as a class. Students received comments on

their digital submissions on how to improve their answers, the feedback mainly highlighted new

details to consider or helped make the connection to how the famine was both a political and an

economic outcome of totalitarianism. Full class feedback was given verbally during the re-teach

of the content. I told my students the kinds of patterns I noticed in their thinking, and explained

that the answer to the first question can help them capture the complexity of the second question.

Section 4: Subsequent Instruction Informed by Analysis of Student Thinking

The day following the assessment, I decided to begin a simulation game in all of my

World History classes. In short, each class simulated life in the Soviet Union. Each class had 4

secret police members who reported to me about students who were failing to follow the long list

of USSR rules. The game took place in and outside of the classroom. The game featured

mechanics for state propaganda, secret police, and terror— which were the details I wanted
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students to answer with for the first question of the assessment. After the game, we debriefed as

a class about what it felt like to live in a simulated totalitarian state, and many of them expressed

how they constantly felt on edge and could not escape the harsh way of life. From there, the class

completed guided notes during an interactive lecture about the Holodomor. This time, I was very

explicit in explaining how totalitarian policies, like collectivization, led to the famine. In this

lecture I encouraged students to reflect on how they viewed the “Stalin” of our simulation game

and apply that feeling to the event of the Holodomor. Now that students had tangibly seen how

Stalin’s policies had both political and economic motives through our game, I expected them to

make this connection on the reassessment.

Section 5: Additional Assessment Information Produced to Determine Student Growth

To accurately measure the growth between the teaching and the reteaching, students were

given the same assessment after the completion of our simulation game and interactive lecture.

This second assessment illuminated quite a drastic change in student thinking when compared to

the first assessment, and a few students expressed to me that reviewing the content again after

spring break was useful in helping them recall what we learned before going on break. This

second assessment showed that about 85% of students displayed an understanding on par with

the first pattern described in Section 3, about 12% fell into the second pattern, and 3% were still

showing pattern three thinking. This data shows that re-teaching the content in a new way was

able to help students develop more complexity in their responses. Student work samples from the

second assessment can be seen below.

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Conclusion

The evidence I was able to gather serves as a justification for taking the time to gather,

organize, and interpret data from student assessments. On the first assessment, only 5% of

students were able to answer both of the questions with the amount of complexity and detail

required to fall into that first pattern of student thinking. 60% of my students fell into the second

category of student thinking, which showed me that they had retained the main ideas over spring

break, but could definitely use some review. Upon reassessment, 85% of students fell into the

first pattern of student thinking, demonstrating a strong understanding of these two ideas and

how they are linked. This data shows that assessing students, adjusting your teaching approaches

with those first results in mind, and reassessing them benefits the students’ understanding

greatly.