Posted: September 13th, 2017

Weekly Assignment

Weekly Assignment

Order Description

Weekly Assignment

A first grade teacher, Ms. Rodriguez, has 21 students in her class. Guided by the common core standards, she decides to have students write an opinion piece about whether they’d prefer to have a puppy or a hamster as a pet.

She sets the following as the common core standards she is addressing with this lesson:

Writing Standard (1): Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

Language – Conventions of Grammar and Usage (1): Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

c. Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences.

j. Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts.

Language – Conventions of Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling (2): Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Capitalize dates and names of people.
Use punctuation for sentences.
Use comma in dates and to separate single words in a series.
Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words.
She then creates a lesson plan to specifically address the essential question: How can I write my opinion about a pet?

To activate students’ attention (and prior knowledge) by showing them a video called “Pets and their Care” which is 15 minutes long.

To teach the lesson, the instructor uses the following outline (which specifically includes collaborative pairs; distributed guided practice; distributed summarizing; graphic organizers – all which can be linked back specifically to cognitive development theories or to information processing theories – note: this is just a note as you start thinking about edTPA).

Process:

See pages 3-4 of this document for the fully developed description of procedures: http://www.ware.k12.ga.us/Curriculum/resources/1/1st%20Grade%20Writing/Section%204%201st%20grade%20Opinion%20Point%20of%20View%20.pdf
See pages 5-6 of the above link for the “stories” about the hamster and the puppy.
See page 7 for a graphic organizer that students will complete.
Assessment:

The teacher uses a district common core assessment (writing rubric) for this assignment. See http://blogs.egusd.net/ccss/files/2013/10/1st_gr.Opinion.Argument.Rubric.11-nxsxev.pdf for the assessment.

She assesses each student. Data are presented in the Excel file.

Data Reporting

Now Ms. Rodriguez is expecting to have parent/teacher conferences, and as well, her principal has asked her to indicate how her students are doing relative to the objective of writing, in general. So, she needs to write a report.

YOUR TASK (try to keep the writing – not the graphs and tables – related to this section to be as concise as possible while still describing the data, interpreting the data, and discussing what you will do for each student).

Describe, in writing, the common core standards being assessed, the essential question being asked, the assignmenmt and the rating rubric using
Present two tables and one graph that provide the following:
Percentages of students scoring at each level of the rubric (e.g., use the countif function to determine how many student are scoring a 1, 2, 3, or 4 across the rubric and then determine what percentage of students that is). See your example from last week.
Average scores across dimensions.
Graph of average scores across dimensions.
Describe what you think these data mean (what are the overall strengths and weaknesses of the class relative to the standards as determined by the rubric; how does the average scores across dimensions further convey this to be the case)?
Interpret those data (make something up) as to why you think the strengths and weaknesses are as they are (so, talk about the strengths and then the weaknesses). You can refer to specific skill sets, you can refer to the overall teaching of the lesson, or whatever. Remember, with your real data from student teaching, this will have to be based on something real, but you are using fake data right now.
Discuss how you would address the whole class student weaknesses in a future lesson to ensure that they learn the skill better.
Assume that you have identified three students whose parents will come and talk to you and who have performed somewhat differently than the other students: Stormy, who has been identified as having ADHD; Sally, who is a struggling reader; and Antoinette, who you is gifted.
Create a table comparing the performances of these students against the average class performance.
Describe the data in the table. Provide an interpretation of these data based on your knowledge of the students.
Specifically address what you will do specifically for these students moving forward (specifically, how will you help the two perform better and what can be done for Antoinette).