Assessment of Student Samples

Solar System Unit

First Grade
19 Students
When I first started student teaching I had an idea that I wanted to
plan a unit that the students would enjoy and be able to think back to later
on. After speaking with my cooperating teacher, I learned that the teachers
are only required to teach a couple of science units. Science is definitely not
my favorite subject, but I felt that it would be most beneficial for the
students to spend a couple of weeks learning about a topic in science. The
students also take an annual field trip to see the planetarium at the Missoula
campus. With this in mind, I decided to develop a four week unit on our solar
system. My goal was to focus the majority of the unit on the students
learning about out the planets. I also wanted to spend a little time on the
Moon and stars. So, the first two weeks were planned around the planets,
and the last two weeks focused more on the Moon and stars. I wanted the
activities to build upon each other so that the students had to think back to
some of the things that they might have already learned before or what they
were going to learn from this unit. With the final assessment in mind, I also
tried to plan the unit around what they students might talk about during their
field trip. Below are several examples of the activities that my students
completed during the unit, including their formative/summative assessment
pieces. They are in the order of when we did them starting with the students
first activity. I have also included a lesson plan to show the extent of the unit
as a whole.
Learning Target: Students will be able to identify all eight planets by name
and by basic characteristics. Students will be able to recite a rhyme that will
help them know the order of the eight planets from the sun. Students will be
able to identify the phase cycle of the moon and be able to comprehend how

the moon orbits the earth. Lastly, students will know how a star forms, what
a constellation is, and be able to identify common known star constellations.
My overall target for the students was to learn mostly about the
planets. I wanted them to know the planets and what they look. I also
wanted to give them some insight to other aspects, such as the Moon and
stars, because our solar system is not just made up of planets.
Pre-assessment: I started with a basic KWL chart to see what the students
might already know about our solar system and the planets. Several of them
knew that we lived on Earth. Some of them were able to name a few planets
as well. One student in particular knew quite a lot about the planets in our
solar system. He began talking about dwarf planets and the moon. I then
asked what sort of things they might want to learn about the solar system.
Some mentioned the planets, things about Earth, the sun, and stars. We
spent about 30 minutes talking and discussing the KWL chart. At the very
end of our unit, I went back to the KWL Chart to discuss with my students
what they learned overall.
Formative/Summative Assessments: Throughout the lesson I tried to
incorporate several formative and summative assessments in order to
analyze how much my students were learning and retaining. As far as
formative assessments go, my students and I did a lot of discussions and
questioning. After we read a book or watched a video, we discussed what
they learned, or what surprised them, about the planets/solar system. I also
had my students do think-pair-share when we watched the videos and read
the books. Before the book/video, I told them they had to watch and think
about what they were learning because they would have to tell me
something about it afterwards. Then I would have them pair up and discuss
what they learned with a partner before we discussed as a whole. Then we
would share all of our thoughts. I also used a lot of observations to analyze
my students learning abilities.

Another activity that I used a form of assessment, as well as a fun activity,

was to create a planet report. I wanted to see how well my students could
use their resources to find information about the planets. In this activity,
students had to choose one planet to complete a report about. They had to
draw the planet and answers a few questions about what it looks like and
facts about it. I have included some exceptional examples of the reports.
Since my main goal for the students was to learn about the planets, I only
used one mini summative assessment at the end of our planet unit. I used
the Who Am I sheets to determine what the students learned. There were a
total of 16 students that day, and out of those 9 got all eight questions right.
Most of the other students answered 3-4 questions correct. Overall, I was
very proud to see that the students could name the planets and identify
them with their basic characteristics. A majority of those students who did
answer them all correctly were the higher level students. However, a couple
of students that tended to be the lower level kids were able to answer them
correctly. I did hope to see more of the lower level students answer more
than 3-4 questions. Knowing this, I tried to review the planets as much as
possible throughout the rest of the unity to give those students more
practice with identifying the planets. In our spare time, I tried to read more
planet books to reiterate the information I wanted them to take away.
Post-Assessment: As I stated earlier, my final assessment piece was the
students field trip to the planetarium. I knew that the students would most
likely learn about the planets and common constellations. I developed my
unit around this field trip because I wanted them to be able to Wow the
speaker during the visit to the campus. This trip was also a way for me to see
what the students remembered and took away from the unit. Overall, the
students blew me away at how much they remembered. When the speaker
would ask if they knew a certain planets name, most of them could shout
out the answer and even tell some facts about it. When they began to look at

the constellations, most of the students could name the Little Dipper and the
Big Dipper, Orion, and Cassiopeia. I was very surprised that they
remembered so much of what I taught them. This unit made me realize how
important, and fun, science is for students.