Assessment Project

Dannielle Neral
 The Assessment
This is our 4th grade unit one
county assessment for math. It
consists of place value
concepts, addition, and
subtraction. The following are
sample problems from the
test. All of our students take
the test online, through a
program called, Schoology. It
is automatically graded and
imported into the gradebook
this way. Questions are
presented by fill-in-the-blank,
multiple choice, and even
short answers.
Results from my 27 4th graders...
The majority of my class did average. Students
who I expected to do well (most of those who are
above grade level) did well and those who I
normally teach for re-teach groups did struggle
a bit. I was actually impressed that the median
was a C for this being our first math unit test of
the year and my first time teaching math in
Baltimore County.
Data is organized by This data helps me to interpret which
kinds of questions students struggle
question and by student: with most and which students in
particular struggled with each type of
question. For this test in particular,
students struggled with the actual
addition problems where they had to
type in the sum into the blank on the
computer. Sometimes this misconsues
data, as students could get the problem
correct but type it into the computer
wrong. The other type of question that
many students had incorrect was the
questions that had them use an image or
table to then interpret data. Students
were not exposed to this many types of
tables throughout the unit which could
have easily limited their ability to
interpret this many on the test.
Implications from Readings...
“Technology use can increase the efficient use of classroom time for assessment
administration, reduce the human workload for the grading of assessments,
improve the recording of assessment results, improve the communication of
immediate and longitudinal performance for every student, aggregate and
analyze performance within and across cohorts of assessment takers, and allow
for practitioners and policymakers to share data to inform decisions on
resource allocation.”

This quote from page 193 of Pinkus really supports the whole reasoning behind
allowing students to take tests online. If I had not used the program we use
called, Schoology, it would have taken me drastically longer to have graded and
analyzed each of my students’ tests. This program allowed me to look at the data
to each individual question and plan for their next unit as well as for my own
teaching for the following year.
 “Changes in effort, approach, or instruction can be made after poor
performance on an assessment, which will hopefully lead to more effective and
productive learning.”

“By seeing when performance is high or low, as compared to the way in which
the material is presented, teachers are able to improve, in an iterative fashion,
their own ability to instruct students.”

These quotes from page 184 of Pinkus really helped me to realize that I should
take data seriously after giving an assessment. Although it does get automatically
entered into the gradebook, it was extremely helpful to look back and reflect on
the data. This made me realize exactly which kinds of questions my students
were getting wrong. In our next unit, I will only be able to provide better graphics
and table to go along with word problems, based on how much I saw my students
struggle with this on this assessment.
Recommendations...
1. As a first year teacher of the math curriculum, I did not know what kind of questions
would exactly be presented on the test. As this was the first test and we started teaching
right at the beginning of the year, I did not take as much time as I could have to look over
the format of the questions. For future tests, I will allow students more practice with these
types of questions they had difficulty with (the image or table examples in particular).
2. Students did have to type in some of the answers to the addition and subtraction
problems. A recommendation I would provide to the county would be for teachers to get to
look over student answers before it is automatically entered into our gradebooks for these
types of errors. I can give students more computer and keyboard practice, but ultimately I
would like to be able to see more of their calculations even though it is an online test.
References
Baltimore County Public Schools Curriculum and Assessments (4th Grade Math)

L. M. Pinkus, ed., Meaningful Measurement: The Role of Assessments in

Improving High School Education in the Twenty-First Century (Washington,

DC: Alliance for Excellent Education, 2009).