D021 Task 3

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Western Governors University *

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D021

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Mathematics

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Apr 3, 2024

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docx

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Uploaded by kclinedinst on coursehero.com

D021 Task 3: Leadership of Curriculum Design and Instruction Kyle Clinedinst Student ID-001029234 Western Governors University January 25, 2024

A. Evaluate the attached “Summative Assessment” by doing the following: 1. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the attached “Summative Assessment” in relation to cultural responsiveness, and justify why you classified each as a strength or weakness (NELP 4.3). Before looking at how the summative assessment is or is not culturally responsive, I need to define this term. Culturally responsive is “using cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives, of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively.” (Gay, 2002). After evaluating the attached Summative Assessment, I have found some parts to be strengths and some parts to be weaknesses. A strength that is noticeable with the Summative Assessment is how it correlates with the Illinois State Standards. The assessment is titled ¨Division Unit¨ and it assesses the student knowledge of standard 4.NBT.6 (Find whole- number quotients and remainders with up to four-digit dividends and one-digit divisors), 4.NBT.3 (use place value to round), and 4.OA.2 + 4.OA.3 (Solve one or more step word problems using division strategies.) (Illinois State Learning Standards/Mathematics Grade 4). There are multiple examples of where the students would need to use place value and their knowledge of division to solve problems. Questions 1-20 would be culturally responsive because there is little to no background knowledge needed rather than simply understanding place value and division. However, 20 questions are strictly ¨skill and drill¨ and do not require a higher level of thinking to solve. A glaring weakness of this assessment is the number of low-level thinking questions. Out of the 23 questions, only 3 are word problems that require a higher level of thinking. According to Bloom’sTaxonomy, there are 4 quadrants, each with a different level of thinking. Our goal as educators is to give students experiences and learning tools to use in each quadrant. The quadrants of rigor are “acquisition, application, assimilation, and adaptation.” (Bloom, 1956). The majority of this assessment is from quadrant A, acquisition. The 3-word problems at the end of the assessment would apply quadrant B, application, but these questions raise the issue of cultural responsiveness. I believe, of the 3-word problems, only one is culturally responsive. Question #22 asks about a party and how many slices of pizza each person would get. This question is culturally neutral as all ethnicities and cultures would understand the situation and allow educators to measure the skill being assessed. Question #22 would be a strength only if this test were modified for ELL students. For example, if a student spoke Spanish, this question would need to be translated from English to Spanish to measure the student's ability to divide accurately. Questions #21 and #23 would not be culturally responsive. First, the question about the basketball team would not assess the target skill of applying division strategies for the students that do not have background knowledge of

sports and more specifically basketball. If the students didn't know that a starting lineup had 5 players, they would not be able to solve this problem. Next, the questions about the heifers and bulls would be unfair to students who do not have an agricultural background. If the students don´t know that heifers and bulls are both farm animals, they would not be able to solve this problem. 2. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the attached “Summative Assessment” in relation to accessibility, and justify why you classified each as a strength or weakness (NELP 4.3). One strength of the “Summative Assessment” is that it correlates with the target standards. The first aspect of a test or assessment being accessible for all students is determining a “target construct” and aligning the test or assessment to the “targeted construct.” (Russell, 2011). The goal of this assessment is to check the student's understanding and ability to solve division problems with or without remainders. This was done with both calculation problems and word problems. Another visible goal of this assessment is to evaluate the student's ability to estimate by rounding. To me, this could be a strength and weakness of the assessment. A strength of the estimating problems is that the teacher can determine which students know how to round. The weakness is how the directions of these estimating problems are worded. For example, for questions 6-8, the directions read “Estimate to solve the following problems:” But this does not specify if the student should round to the nearest ten or hundred. Question #6 is 179 ÷ 9. If the goal is to test students' clean understanding of factors, this question makes sense because one would know that 180 is divisible by 9. But, if the goal is to check the students’ ability to round accurately, and then divide, this question is not clear and accessible. If a student rounds 179 to the nearest hundred and gets 200, then this number is not easily divisible by 9. Another weakness of this assessment is the layout. The questions are very close and there is not much room for a student to show their work. It is an important teaching tool for an instructor to see a student’s work. If a student were to make a calculating error, a teacher can spot the mistake in their work, and help the student fix their mistake. Without ample space to show their work, checking for mistakes isn’t possible. The students could be using scrap paper, but this still makes it difficult to check students’ work. Often, students throw away scrap paper, or if the teacher does collect it, the students write all over the paper and it’s hard to match their work to the correct question from the test.

3. Analyze how well the attached “Summative Assessment” aligns with the attached “Curriculum Map” to support data informed instructional improvement (NELP 4.3). The Summative Assessment doesn’t clearly state which unit it assesses from the Curriculum Map. After looking at the standards and how they align with the Curriculum Map, I have determined that this assessment is from Unit 1. There are several alignment issues I would address to better improve instruction. First, a minor detail would be to add the Unit in which this assessment covers to the front of the assessment. This way, when gathering data, the teacher can refer to Unit 1’s assessment to quickly check for student understanding and find areas of weakness that need to be addressed. Another alignment issue is how the standards being assessed match both the curriculum map and the Illinois State Standards. As mentioned in my second task, the Curriculum Map omits 2 standards, one of which this assessment addresses. 4.OA.2 (Multiply or divide to solve word problems) is not in the Curriculum Map but is on this assessment. That raises the question of how well this standard was taught during the unit. Also, 2 standards were on the Curriculum Map, but it did not specify which Unit they were taught. Again, one of these standards, 4.NBT.3 (Use place value understanding to round multi-digit whole numbers to any place) is being assessed in this assessment. (Illinois State Department of Education, n.d.) These standards need to be on the curriculum map and in Unit 1 lessons before being on the Summative Assessment. 4. Recommend specific steps you would take to collaborate with teachers who are implementing the attached “Summative Assessment” address each of the weaknesses you identified in parts A1–A3 (NELP 4.4). a. Justify how the steps in part A4 would be effective in addressing the identified weaknesses (NELP 4.4). There are several steps I would take to address each of the weaknesses identified in parts A1-A3. First, and most importantly, I would address the issue of the Curriculum Map omitting standards and not specifically stating when standards are taught. A Curriculum Map should be so detailed that a new teacher can walk into the classroom and have confidence in what they are teaching and when they are teaching it. This Curriculum Map is too vague. All the state standards need to be added and included in one or more Units. As I mentioned in Task 2, the Curriculum Map should state each lesson for each Unit. These lessons need to include tier 2 and 3 activities, enrichment options, vocabulary, differentiated strategies, formative assessment, and a pacing guide. Once this is established, then the Summative Assessment would be evaluated to make sure that it aligns with the Curriculum Map.

Next, the formatting of the Summative Assessment should be adjusted giving the student more space to show their work. The justification of this step is to allow the teacher to check student work. If a student were to show a lack of understanding of simple division skills, long division, or rounding, the teacher can check their work to find the mistakes. Then, the teacher can address these mistakes with the student. If multiple students are making the same mistake, the teacher can evaluate their instruction and make modifications as needed. This can’t be done unless the teacher can see the students work. Another suggestion would be to rewrite the estimating questions. If the purpose of the estimating questions is to assess the student's abilities to round first, and then divide, the directions should state either round to the nearest ten or hundred. My justification for this suggestion is that students could round correctly and still get the wrong answer. For example, question 8 is 352 ÷ 5. One student could round 352 to 400, then divide by 5 to get 80. Another student could round 352 to 350, then divide by 5 to get 70. I’m assuming that this assessment calls for students to round to the nearest 10 based on the other questions, so if a student rounds correctly but gets 80 in the example above, that would be marked as wrong. Most students wouldn’t have masterly level knowledge of factors at this level and may not know to round to the nearest ten unless it was clearly stated in the directions of this assessment. Finally, I would address the word problem. First, questions #21 and #23 are not culturally responsive. As stated above, without an athletic or agricultural background, students would not understand key aspects of these questions. I would suggest changing these problems to fit the unique and different cultural and ethnic needs of the students. If the questions were to remain on the assessment, going over some key vocabulary before the assessment would be crucial. For example, going over what a heifer and bull are and how in basketball a starting lineup is the first 5 players that start the game. Furthermore, I would suggest reading the word problems aloud to all students who would like this modification, not just students who require this per their IEP. All state tests for grades 3-5 read the math questions aloud to all students. This ensures that their math skills are being assessed, not their reading skills. I would do the same for all word problems on math assessments, whether they be administered by the state, district, or school.

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