Assessment

By Sarah Sartor, 8th Grade Language Arts Teacher at Sonoran Heights Elementary School

October 6, 2017

Since my last blog, I had the opportunity to meet with my principal regarding my evaluation. He seemed very enthusiastic and genuinely interested in how I have been personalizing my classroom. All-in-all, I’d say it went pretty well.

Moving on… since my evaluation we (the students) took our first big unit assessment. This was bad news and I learned a lot from the experience. It was our first online assessment using the new curriculum - I opted not to use the selection tests (my first mistake). I also feel like I did not prepare my students enough for the rigor required to be successful on the test (second mistake). After we were finished, the kids and I looked at the data. They made a list of the questions they got wrong and what topic the questions dealt with. We spent the last couple days re-learning the skills we missed on the test. I retaught these skills to the whole class because we didn’t have enough time to cover 5-6 skills over the last two days. Today, my students completed the unit retake. They appeared to be more confident retaking the test than they did during the original test. I’m hopeful that their scores will have improved. For the next unit, I will be sure to ask more questions that are similar to the questions on the selection and unit tests.

My other struggle is still figuring out my small groups and a schedule that works in the classroom. This seemed like such an easy task when I was a primary teacher. I’m still trying to find the balance between allowing my students to choose which groups to be a part of and my role in placing students in groups.

The same struggle with balance is happening with my weekly schedule too. I went to a couple professional development and PLC meetings over the last couple weeks and there were some amazing resources shared. I can’t wait to implement them in a way that fits our room - the problem is deciding how to make it work for us. How do you balance small groups and a routine or schedule each week?