How do we assess learning?

You might be wondering how we assess your child’s learning throughout a school year. Particularly during a child’s elementary years, it is important for parents and educators, alike, to understand there are a variety of developmental factors which impact a child’s readiness to grasp certain topics. Your student’s learning, however, is assessed using a variety of formative and summative assessments. These may include but are not limited to: traditional teacher generated assessments, verbal assessments, projects, demonstrations, reports, classroom assignments, classroom observations, and/or classroom discussions.

How Is the Final Grade Determined?

The final score may be determined by a Final Demonstration of Learning. In addition, teachers will also review a preponderance of student evidence of learning over time to determine proficiency of a standard.

Elementary teachers will not report proficiency via percentages at any grade level. Pure mathematical averages do not accurately report a child’s true level of proficiency with a standard. In fact, percentages can actually penalize a child for what he/she didn’t already know at the start of a unit of study. A variety of learning evidences over time, in conjunction with teacher professional judgment, and a child’s performance on a Final Demonstration of Learning is more strongly correlated to an accurate depiction of student learning. Teachers at our intermediate levels, particularly sixth grade will work with students to help them understand the ranges of Academic Indicators and how those will relate to the percentage grading system found in our middle schools. It should be noted, throughout middle schools many teachers are also practicing standards based grading. The transition to Standards Based Grading and Reporting is often most appropriate at the elementary level first where a foundation of learning is being built which requires measurement of self to learning target without the need to translate that data to grade point averages, class ranks, etc.

Building a Learning Community

Wednesday morning we filled in our second tens frame as we counted the days we have been in first grade. It's already been twenty school days. We have spent those twenty days learning procedures and expectations. We've hung up our work on our bulletin boards. 

The first twenty days have also allowed us to start building our classroom community as well. We read a great book, Heartprints, by P.K. Hallinin. The book talks about ways to show kindness to one another. The small acts of kindness that we show people leave 'heartprints' for both the receiver and the giver. During our morning meeting, we discuss ways to leave heartprints for others in our school community. We talked about ways to leave heartprints at recess and in the cafeteria. We talked about leaving those heartprints for both students and adults in our school community. We will continue to work on how we can show kindness throughout the school year.

We've also worked on building a reading community. We've learned how to listen to stories with active listening: eyes watching, ears listening, mouths waiting, hands still and legs crossed. We have participated in rereading stories together and singing songs. We learned how to recognize and read our classmates' names. 

Most importantly, we have practiced listening to the ideas of our classmates. As we read stories, we turn to share our thinking with a partner. Each partner participates in sharing their ideas and listening to their partner. In the beginning, students were each sharing their ideas without really responding to what the other had said. But this week, I began to hear those beginnings of a community. Students were listening to one another and I could hear them saying, " I was thinking the same thing as you," or "My thinking was a little bit different. I thought..." They were holding each other accountable too, because they wanted to hear their partner's ideas. We know how much we can learn from one another as well as the teacher.

We've been building community in Writers' Workshop as well. Each week, students are listening to a story to get ideas, sharing their writing ideas and writing independently. Every week, we meet together to share our fabulous writing. We sit in a circle with our stories in front of us. One by one, we sit on the stool and hold the microphone as we read our stories to our classmates. We are working on listening respectfully and thoughtfully- using this time to learn a little more about our classmates. We take the opportunity to thank our classmates for sharing their stories with us. We're practicing speaking and listening skills. 

SeeSaw has also allowed parents to join our learning community too. We are so excited to share what we are learning. I hope you saw new posts about our science experiment on sound. We love to see your comments and likes. Throughout this school year, we will continue to add to our SeeSaw journals. 

Thinking, listening and sharing are integral parts of building a classroom community where students learn.

Characteristics of a Successful Learner

In our transition to Standards Based Grading and Reporting we want students to understand that the final mark they receive for a reporting standard on the grade level progress report will not be negatively impacted by learner behaviors. Effort, behavior, extra points, etc. are not figured into a final grade. Instead, teachers will indicate progress to parents regarding skills necessary for long-term academic success via the Characteristics of a Successful Learner section of the progress report. This updated area of the progress report will inform students and parents about learner behaviors (i.e. Following written and oral directions, demonstration of organization, etc.). The Characteristics of a Successful Learner Indicators are defined below.

Characteristics of a Successful Learner Indicators:

4 – Student consistently demonstrates this skill

3 – Student demonstrates this skill most of the time

2 – Student demonstrates this skill some of the time

1 – Student requires on-going support to develop and demonstrate this skill

Each week I will share information regarding your student's progress on these skills through Thursday folder communications.

Part Part Whole

We are focusing on addition and subtraction in Math. We are using the part-part whole model to strengthen our understanding of the structure and meaning of both addition and subtraction. When we solve addition problems we take two parts (or addends) and put them together to make the whole (or sum).

This week we focused on story problems where we added two parts together to find the whole. We did this by adding on to a number. Tatum has 4 red apples. She bought 2 more apples. How many apples does she have now? In this problem we know that she has 4 apples (part) and gets 2 more (part). We have to combine those parts to find the whole.

We also solved problems where we had to combine two different parts together.Noah saw 2 ducks in the pond. He saw 3 ducks next to the pond. How many ducks did he see altogether? We had to combine our two parts 2 + 3 to find the whole. We practiced writing number sentences which represented our story problems as well.

We also noticed that there were many different ways to divide a whole into parts. If seven is the whole, the parts could be 7 and 0, 6 and 1, 5 and 2, or 4 and 3. We are just beginning to recognize how we can break apart a whole in different ways.

You can reinforce this skill by using toys and household items. Understanding the part-part whole model helps students with mental math and problem solving.


Next week, we will be using the part-part whole model to help us solve subtraction problems.

Final Demonstration of Learning

When we are prepared to summatively assess students on a reporting standard, they will complete a Final Demonstration of Learning or FDOL. Students will become familiar with this term. If a FDOL is a formal classroom assessment results will come home with an assigned academic indicator. The Academic Indicators being used by R7 to communicate a child’s level of proficiency of a standard are defined below.

Academic Performance Skills Indicators:

M- Indicates the student is consistently and independently meeting proficiency of the grade level standard.

A student who receives an “M” has met the defined grade level standard.

P- Indicates the student is progressing toward independent proficiency of the grade level standard.

A student who is progressing toward a standard is demonstrating a level of understanding that is expected and typical during the course of the school year at a given time.

E - Indicates the student is experiencing difficulty understanding the grade level standard and requires additional time and support as he/she progresses toward proficiency.

A student who is experiencing difficulty understanding a grade level standard may require additional support or intervention, monitoring, practice, reteaching, or simplymore time to demonstrate proficiency.

Building Independence

This week we have been building our stamina for Daily 5. We have been learning how to work independently, or on our own during this time. Each day we have added on more time to help us become more independent learners. We are building our stamina for reading independently. We are able to choose a book, stay in one spot and read to ourselves (either the words or the pictures). We even pick out a different book when we are finished with a book. We are reading independently for about 15 minutes! (That's really impressive for the beginning of first grade!)

We have also been building our independence for word work. This is a time where we make and read words in a variety of ways. We used play-doh, magnetic letters, letter beads and letter tiles. We are really working on working with quiet voices. We get so excited about the words we make we want to share with all our friends.