Whitney Powell

Assessment of Learning
Standards INTASC 6 The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teachers and learners decision-making. NSTA 5 a) Collect, organize, analyze, and reflect on diagnostic, formative and summative evidence of a change in mental functioning demonstrating that scientific knowledge is gained and/or corrected. b) Provide data to show that P-12 students are able to distinguish science from nonscience, understand the evolution and practice of science as a human endeavor, and critically analyze assertions made in the name of science. c) Engage students in developmentally-appropriate inquiries that require them to develop concepts and relationships from their observations, data, and inferences in a scientific manner. Reflection After creating and publishing my 10-day Unit Plan on Genetics, I have taken time to formatively and summatively assess student learning throughout the unit plan. Throughout my unit plan I used four formative assessments and a summative test at the conclusion of the unit plan. Throughout the following reflection I will discuss the forms of assessment and student learning. All student work throughout the reflection have been given an aliases to protect their identity. Solving Simple Crosses Activity Sheet This formative assessment took place over three days. Each day I would begin with a quick introduction and review from the previous day. Then together we would use the Solving Crosses PowerPoint as a guide to structure the lesson. In addition, we used dry erase boards so we could work through problems collectively as a class. I believe that a change in routine, even if its as simple as a dry erase board will get students engaged in the topic being discussed. In addition, students can raise their dry erase board when finished working on the problem so I have the opportunity to see if students were understanding the content. Watching students work through problems on their dry erase board gave me the opportunity to step in and correct any alternate conceptions students had while completing monohybrid and dihybrid crosses. After completing the guided PowerPoint section that accompanied monohybrid crosses, students were given a worksheet that had both monoand dihybrid cross problems for them to work through. I assigned for students to complete the first side of the worksheet, but not the other side. For the first problem on the activity sheet, I provided Punnett squares for students to use to complete the question. I added the Punnett square as a reminder for students that they needed to use the squares to show their work to determine the probability of determining a particular trait. However, no other Punnett squares were given throughout

Whitney Powell the rest of the first side of the activity sheet. Upon collecting the worksheet, I saw that all students completed the first two questions using the Punnett Squares. Figure 1. Mackenzies first questions

Mackenzies knowledge of monohybrid crosses is shown in the Punnett Squares above. In addition, Mackenzie went above and beyond because she recognized that both a capital s (S) and lowercase s (s) look very similar and chose to write in both print and cursive to differentiate between the two. Figure 2. Coreys first questions

Corey did complete the questions correctly with the exception of using numbers rather than percentages. In addition, Corey did not use print or cursive writing, but did not get confused without using that strategy. Overall students did a great job answering the first two questions. However, after the first two questions I did not provide Punnett Squares for their work. Students at this

Whitney Powell point should understand that they need to show their work to determine the probability of inheriting a particular trait, however, their work shows differently. Figure 3. Mackenzies questions without given Punnett Squares

Once again, Mackenzie shows her knowledge of the subject by interpreting the questions and realizing she needs to use a Punnett Square to complete the following questions. Figure 4. Coreys questions without given Punnett Squares

Coreys work shows that she does not understand what is happening. After talking with Corey, she told me that she got these answers by guessing what outcome would most likely happen rather than actually determining the correct answers. For example, for question 13 Corey chose brown eyes because she knew that brown eyes were more prevalent throughout the population than blue eyes. At this point I addressed the entire class and stated that whenever a question asked the probability of anything when two things cross, students need to use a Punnett Square. Sex Linked Traits Poster Activity On Day 6, we explored sex linked traits. First students were told that colorblindness is much more common in males than females. Students were given 5 minutes to discuss with their neighbors why they thought this occurred. Next, students were shown a video to determine if they were colorblind to gain their interest in the topic. Together we finally finished the Solving Crosses PPT as a class. Students were given an activity sheet with four questions to show their knowledge of solving sex linked crosses. Students were told multiple times that when solving sex linked crosses, they have to show a male crossing with a female to produce offspring in their Punnett squares. However, students continued to complete Punnett Squares as shown in simple crosses rather than sex linked crosses. For the poster portion of the lesson, groups of 4 or 5 students were assigned different sex-linked disorders and were instructed to create a poster to teach their peers about their sex-linked disorder. Students were given a rubric that showed what each group should include on their poster. Students were given 35 minutes to use laptops to research and create a posterboard on their sex-linked trait.

Whitney Powell Table 1. Posterboard Activity Rubric Item Needed Points assigned Title 5 Prevalence 10 Most common in which 15 Ethnicity & Sex Symptoms 10 Prognosis 10 Cause 10 Phenotypic Effects 10 Genotype 10 Posterboard 10 Presentation 10 Total: Figure 5. Sex-Linked Trait Poster (Hemophilia)

Total

/100

Whitney Powell

Pictured above is a groups poster on hemophilia. This group did a great job creating and presenting their poster. However, this group forgot to discuss and write about the phenotypic effects caused by hemophilia. So they received a 90 as their project grade. Throughout student discussion, I found that many students did not recognize how common sex-linked traits were in humans. In addition, students liked completing their own research and having the ability to look at different articles, videos, and pictures about the different sex-linked disorders. Students enjoyed taking their research and compiling it into a quick poster board that was easy to read and teach to their classmates. Students also had the ability to pick out the things that were most important to them and share them with the class. For example, this group chose to share that the voice of Lois on Family Guy had hemophilia in addition to Abraham Lincoln. Pedigree Activity Sheet Day 8 focused on reading pedigrees. I started the lesson by having students draw out a quick family tree from everyone in their family starting with their grandparents. This includes all cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. In addition, I drew my family tree on the board. Then, I put up a pedigree of my family, and explained how pedigrees worked that way. I believe this immediately showed students that pedigrees first and foremost show family history. Then, I tracked colorblindness throughout my family. Now students see that pedigrees show both family history and the prevalence and passing of a genetic trait through a family. After discussing how pedigrees work, students were given an activity sheet that they had time to complete in class. In addition, if students did not have enough time in class they were given the opportunity to complete the activity sheet for homework. Students were informed that the sheet would be graded partially for completion and partially for accuracy. Figure 6. Adams Pedigree Activity Sheet

Whitney Powell From Adams work, we can see that he beame confused multiple times. I believe, this was from him beginnig to draw the entire pedigree before carefully reading through the entire question. As you can see he re-drew the pedigree three different times, and still had mistakes throughout the pedigree. However, Adam did use his knowledge of sex linked traits and remembered to incorporate sex into his Punnett Square to solve if Sara and Dans child would have the jumping disease. Once again, Adam did not read the question correctly and incorrectly solved for the percent that the child would be a carrier rather than if the child had the jumping disease. Figure 7. Hayleys Pedigree Activity Sheet

Hayley correctled created and solved the Pedigree to see if Sara and Dans child would have the jumping disease. I asked Hayley why she took the time to write all the family members name and she replied that it made the pedigree easier to follow and it easily allowed her to solve for the answer to the question at the end. Hayley also stated, Im so glad I did write all their names down so I wouldnt have to go back and try to figure out which box and circle would be having a baby! I thought this was a very interesting point that she brought up and I plan to encourage students to do this in the future. Summative Assessment/Unit Test At the end of the unit, I gave an assessment test that I created from the textbook test bank. This year our school received new science textbooks. We chose the textbook created by Pearson, because they create the SOL tests. In addition, I think it is important for students to become familiar with Pearsons wording, so I chose to use their questions. The test consisted of 3 true/false questions and 31 multiple-choice questions. Each true/false question was only worth 2 points whereas the multiple-choice questions were worth 3 points each.

Whitney Powell The data from the test was lower than I believed it would be. Across all three classes the average was a 72.4%. However, across their grades for the rest of the unit were much higher at 78.6%. The discrepancy may have been caused by the variety of question type. For example, all the questions throughout their activity sheets were all short answer and had space for them to complete the Punnett Squares directly with the question. However, on the test, I only made one class set to conserve paper, so students were not allowed to write directly on the test and thus could not complete their Punnett Squares right beside the questions. In addition, as I was grading the tests, I noticed that students who did not show any work on their answer sheet typically scored 5-8 points lower than their peers who did show their work. The summative test was used as the end of the unit assessment, throughout the test I received no personal feedback from the students, just their bubbled in answers and the sparse work shown on the side of their answer sheets. I believe that summative assessments are crucial to show learning, however it was unfortunate that students did not have the opportunity to reflect on their own work. I believe that my different forms of assessment promoted both learning and reflection through communication with the students as a group and as individuals. Creating this assessment reflection made me further reflect on my lessons and how to improve them next year in the classroom. I full-heartily believe that reflection and improvement are two of the most crucial qualities for a science teacher to have.