Holly McDonnell

Towson University
Evidence of Student Learning Signature Assessment

Part A: Learning Context, Topic, and Objectives

The Evidence of Student Learning (ESL) Signature Assessment was implemented at Dayton

Oaks Elementary School in Howard County, Maryland. Dayton Oaks School has a current

enrollment rate of six hundred seventy-seven students from grade levels of prekindergarten

through fifth grade. Demographics of the school include: 0.4 % American Indian, 23.6% Asian,

8.1% African American, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 58.8% Caucasian, and 4.4% identify as two or

more races. Special Education services in the school are servicing 13.0% of the school

population, and about 5.0% students are limited English proficient. Another 5.0% receive free or

reduced lunch within the school, and less than ten students are qualified for Title I. The class that

I implemented the ESL assignment with is a second grade general education classroom. This

class contains one student with an Individualized Education Plan for speech language reasons,

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and one other student is currently on a 504 plan. This class has twenty-three students that

contains fifteen males and eight female students. Within the class of twenty-three the ethnicities

are: thirteen Caucasian, six Asian, two African American, and two identified as two or more race.
The objectives I created to align with the Maryland Common Core Readiness Standards for

social studies are further explained in Part C: Instruction of this paper. All objectives were

created to be child-friendly in terminology, measureable, and meaningful. Students will

demonstrate the knowledge that they gain by completing formative assessments throughout the

units lessons every day, and through a Plickers summative assessment as well as creating a

poster describing how to be a smart shopper summative assessment. The creation of a poster

aligned with the writing instruction unit for quarter three. The standards that the Howard County

Public School System (HCPSS) had chosen for the summative assessment were to answer

questions about the unit, and to present social studies information in a variety of ways, one being

the creation of a poster.

Part B: Assessment Plan

Pre-Assessment
The pre-assessment instrument I used for this unit was a whole group

mind map anchor chart. The vocabulary from the unit were written on chart

paper, and I asked for students to define each word and give examples for a

few of the words on the chart. Before sharing their own definitions and what

they knew about each vocabulary word, I gave students time to turn to a

partner and discuss ideas. This way, students have time to share their ideas

and thoughts with peers, and to facilitate collaboration in defining the terms.

Using this pre-assessment allowed me to gather information about the

students pre-existing knowledge of the units objectives and terms. This pre-

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assessment allowed me to identify each students existing knowledge and

learning needs. I also asked students for questions they had about each

topic, which I addressed throughout the units lessons where appropriate. To

obtain what the students questions where about the concepts, I asked the

class to think about what they still wonder about, or if they have any

questions regarding the terms on the chart paper. I wrote down each

students questions connected to the corresponding social studies term, in a

different color marker than the comments of what students already know. I

also made sure to conference individually with the five students whose

progress I would be tracking on a chart for this assignment, to gain individual

pre-assessment data for them. By doing a mind map, I was giving space for

the students to build off ideas from one another about the units main

concepts, and organizing the information so that they could visualize how al

the main concepts are related to each other in this unit. This social studies

unit is aligned to the Maryland Common Core State Standard 4.0 of

Economics: Students will identify the economic principles and processes that

are helpful to producers and consumers when making good decisions. The

essential skills and knowledge section is not listed for social studies, instead

there are standard Indicators. The Indicators that this social studies unit

will focus on are within Standard 4s Topics of Topic A and Topic B. Topic A is:

Scarcity and economic decision making. Topic A includes these Indicators: 1.

Explain why people have to make economic choices about goods and

services, 2. Explain the production process, 3. Examine how technology

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affects the way people live, work and play. This unit also will address Topic

B: Economic systems and the role of the government in the process. Under

Topic B the Indicators are: 1. Describe different types of markets, and 3.

Describe how consumers acquire goods and services.

Formative Assessments
The formative assessments I used were differentiated by different learning styles in the

classroom. For my first lesson of the unit, I did an introduction lesson to introduce the new

concepts that were to be covered throughout the social studies unit. To pre-assess the students

knowledge of the main concepts talked about in this unit, I did a whole group mind map after a

quick engagement video about bartering goods. For the mind map, I allowed time for students to

visually see each vocabulary term and have time to discuss with a partner what these words mean

and any information they know about each. The students gave me information about the terms,

built comments and ideas off from their peers, we had a whole group discussion about each

concept, and we discussed any questions they had about any of the terms. After discussing the

terms and really focusing in on the concepts of capital, human, and natural resources and

giving examples, I had the student work in groups of three to complete a resource picture sort T

chart on half of chart paper. Before assigning the assessment to the students, I went over a few

rules to working cooperatively with partners, to ensure that the rules for working in groups were

established. I told the students that they must be in groups of three, all members must participate

and help each other, and if there is a disagreement they need to politely state their disagreement

and explain why. This particular class I have noticed responds very well to working

collaboratively on projects and assessments, and it is very engaging to them. With these two

observations in mind, and to differentiate their assessments from worksheets, I made the decision

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to have them work in groups. With this particular lesson on resources, I found it much more

effective for the students to collaborate and share ideas and comments about the lessons

concepts to their peers, for extra support in learning these concepts. I found that the students

working in these groups, helped students that were still unsure about the difference between

capital and human resources by allowing them to learn and reinforce the information taught in

the lesson from their peers.

The second lesson I did with the class was about how goods are produced, and the lesson

went deeper into what capital, human, and natural resources are and how they are used to

produce goods. The formative assessments I used for this lesson were first starting with the

motivation video I played in the beginning of the lesson that was a video of an assembly line

making an apple pie. The students watched the video and we had a discussion of what they saw

in the video, and how facilitating an assembly line results in increased production of goods. I

assessed the students responses to this video in regards about how specialized work increases

the production of goods. Then, I made observations and assessed the students by having them

answer questions during the video book reading of How to Make an Apple Pie and See the

World. The students were given a worksheet with a chart on it with three columns that included:

natural resources, capital resources, and human resources. The students were told before the

video book reading that we will be hearing a story about a girl who wants to make an apple pie,

but the market is closed, so she gathers her resources to make the pie from around the world. I

also told them that we will be writing the different resources she uses in the book, under the

correct column. To ensure that the students understood my expectations of this assignment, I

modeled the first resource with them. I stopped the video and modeled what to write on my paper

first by asking, What resource did the girl first need/get. I also did a quick think aloud where I

said, So the first item the girl found were eggs, so the natural resource is a chicken. I said this

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to ensure that the students would correct me, and to eliminate any misconceptions of natural

resources being the animal or the plant the resource comes from, instead of the resource itself.

The rest of the video, I allowed the students to write down all the natural resources from the

story that they heard, on their own. When the girl in the story started collected capital resources,

I modeled again what to write down for the first one, and then had the students write the rest

mentioned. I knew students would have a harder time identifying the human resource in the

video, because it is not directly mentioned as something the girl used to make the pie. So, after

the video I had a quick discussion and assessed students understanding of the video by asking

who, what, where, how, why questions about the story. I asked these questions to make sure all

students understood the story itself, this way if any students were focused on writing, they were

able to get a quick review of the story aloud from peers. There are a few students in the class that

I knew would out most of their focus on writing instead of actively listening to every detail of the

story, so I only had children write in bullets, one word for the resource, and did the quick review

as a differentiation from writing full sentences about what happened. This way, all students could

participate in this lesson. While asking questions about the story after the video ended, I guided

students to what the human resource in the story was. To assess the students ability to identify

the human resource in the story, I asked them to define what a human resource is, and to remind

the group of some of the examples of human resources from the picture sort previously.

Throughout this whole lesson, I assessed the students ability to recognize that specialized work

produces goods faster, their ability to identify the three types of resources used in the story, and

their ability to answer questions about the story. I differentiated the lessons assessment by

allowing more auditory responses and discussions for the students who learn better by listening

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and talking, and by doing an organizer chart for those who learn better by writing or having a

visual of the concepts and information organized.

The third lesson was about how technology has impacted the production of goods. To formally

assess the students in this lesson, I first asked questions about what they noticed and saw in a

video called How Its Made: Bubble Gum. I assessed the students ability to recognize that

only machines and technology was used to make the bubble gum, and that it was fast and

efficient. Then, I had students do an assembly line simulation, where I split the class into two

groups. One group was to act as an assembly line to make a good, and the other group had to

make the goods completely on their own using task cards with step-by-step instructions. After

the simulation, I assessed the students abilities to explain how assembly lines are faster in

producing goods, but also how technology has impacted the lives of producers. I also assessed

them on their ability to explain how technology has affected their lives. I assessed both by asking

questions after the assembly line simulation about which group was more efficient and why, and

how technology would have impacted the activity. I also obtained assessment information

through a quick write I created for the students to answer about how technology impacted the

production of goods, and how it has affected their lives. The differentiation I used in this lesson

for formative assessments was by asking questions aloud for those who learn better that way,

allowing those students to hear peers comments and understand the writing assessment better. I

also had a quick write to support those who learn better from writing and explaining their

thinking this way. Lastly, I had the physical assembly simulation for those how learn better

kinesthetically, to grasp the concepts and ideas of this lesson by giving them hands-on support.
The fourth lesson for this unit was about different types of markets and how people buy goods.

The first formative assessment I had for this lesson, was after watching the floating markets

video used for engagement, I assessed the students abilities to comment on the video about what

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they saw in the video and who they thought the consumers and the producers in the video were.

Then, I had the students read with partners, the nonfiction text, At the Market. Before reading,

I told students that while reading I wanted them to pay attention to the different types of markets

the book talks about and what is sold there. After reading, I assessed the students understanding

of different markets where people go to buy goods by having them share about the different

markets they read about, while I created a class mind map of the book and various markets

mentioned. The class discussed each market and the similarities and differences of all the

markets in the book. After this activity, I had the students do a quick write and draw assessment

activity to assess their understanding of markets and what goods people can buy at certain

markets. The activity was for the students to make an Instagram post about a market they

visited. I chose this option to engage the students in writing about markets. The children had

space to draw a picture post about a market they visited, and they had space to write which

market they visited and what goods they bought there. The ways I differentiated this lessons

assessments was by including verbal discussions about the video and about the book we read for

those who learn better by verbally expressing their thoughts or by listening to peers. I also

included reading into this lesson for those who learn better from reading about a topic, and to

connect language arts into social studies. Lastly, I included the mind map for visual learners, and

the Instagram post paper for those who need motivation to write.

The fifth lesson focused on how people decide what goods to buy. I assessed students abilities

to: explain economic choices people make, identify and give examples of the positive and

negative aspects of each choice, explain that choices have consequences, some of which are

more important than others, and identify positive and negative incentives that influence the

decisions that people must make. I assessed these understanding by asking questions after

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viewing the picture chapter opener, and guiding a discussion of buying things you need first,

rather than just goods that you want. Then, I had the students complete a shopping simulation,

where in groups of three-four students, they were able to buy goods provided using the cut out

ten dollars that was given to each student. Each student had a paper where they had to glue in the

picture of the item(s) bought, and color in how much money it costed, and then color in how

much money they had saved at the end, if any. After completing the paper, I gathered all students

back on the carpet to discuss their spending choices. I asked a series of questions about what

items most students bought, how much those items were, how much they saved, and what they

would do differently if the ten dollars was all the money they had for a week. After the group

discussion I also wanted to assess the students abilities to determine wise and unwise buying

decisions. I create a quick activity, where I read off short scenarios of people making decisions

when buying an item, and asked the students to show me thumbs up if the decision was wise and

thumbs down if the decision was unwise. I had students explain their thinking as well during this

activity. I differentiated this lessons assessments by doing more group discussion and hands-on

activities to support those who learn and are more engaged through class discussions and

kinesthetic activities. For this lesson, I wanted to offer an opportunity to highlight kinesthetic

activities and verbal discussions, and have students complete less writing to motivate them.
The sixth lesson was about how countries and states share goods through trade. I assessed the

students abilities to: explain how goods are produced in different places, the purpose of trading

goods, and demonstrate how trading connects people around the world. I assessed the students by

asking questions after viewing the video Where Does Chocolate Come From. I asked students

questions about the content in the video to ensure they understood the video, and guided a

discussion about the purpose of countries and states trading goods. I also assessed the students

understanding of the purpose of trade by doing a trade simulation activity. I had given each

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student their own household good, food good, and clothing good from specific states identified

underneath the picture cut outs given to them. Each student also received a trade recording sheet

to track their trades. Students were given time to trade two of each good category for their goods,

they had to glue the new items received through trade on the recording sheet, and then color in a

map of the states they received items from on a map given to each student. This lessons

formative assessments were differentiated by offering students a chance to verbally express their

ideas and answers in group discussions, by learning the purpose of trading threw a hands-on

simulation of trade, and supporting visual learners by providing organized chart worksheets for

the trade activity and a video.

Summative Assessment
The summative assessment I planned for this unit is for the students to take a quick Plickers

quiz, and to create a Smart Shoppers poster individually. The HCPSS objectives for the ending

unit lesson are: to answer questions about social studies and to present social studies in a variety

of ways such as a poster. This summative assessment also aligns to the MCCRS Standard 4.0

Economics: Students will identify the economic principles and processes that are helpful to

producers and consumers when making good decisions. Plickers is an online application and

website that teachers can use to assess students in a more engaging way. The questions that I

created were projected for the entire class to see and the students answered the questions by

holding up the side of their cards that corresponded with the multiple choice answer they were

choosing. The poster assessment will be assessing each students understanding of the unit as a

whole and what it means to be a smart shopper. Each student will create their own poster of what

it means to be a smart shopper with at least three or more statements/ideas on their poster.
Scoring Tools and Data Collection
The scoring tools used in this unit follows the HCPSS scoring tool for grades below third

grade. The scoring tool I used for all assessments completed and turned in to me was the: I for

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work done independently, W for work done with assistance, and N for work that needs

improvement. To collect data on student progress throughout the unit, I organized all graded

assessments by date and lesson in a file bin. I also would write anecdotal records during each

lesson to keep track of student progress. The process of collecting data included tracking the five

students scores in a chart to show growth from formative and summative assessment tools,

conferencing with students, and observations through class discussions. I also collected all

completed formative and summative assessment work that the students did individually and in

groups over the unit periods.

Part C: Instruction
Objectives
I will develop child-friendly lesson objectives for each lesson. I will tell the students what

todays objectives are for each social studies lesson to ensure that students will be informed

what they will be learning about in each lesson. The beginning lesson, lesson one, I will tell the

class that we are going to talk about why we think it is important for kids to know how to be a

smart shopper. I will also tell them that we will do this by first watching a video, creating a mind

map anchor chart about the different terms we will learn about over the next few days, and then

we will do a group activity. For lesson two, the objectives will be: we will find out the natural,

capital, and human resources used in the production of an apple pie while listening to the reading

of a book; and learn about what are the most efficient ways to produce goods. For the third

lesson, I will tell the students that we are going to learn how technology has helped in the

production of goods by watching a video of how bubble gum is made, and we will do our own

assembly line activity. For the fourth lesson I will tell the students that we are going to find out

about the different places that people go to buy goods by watching a video and by reading a book

with a partner. The fifth lesson, I will tell students that we are going to learn about decisions and

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consequences when buying goods by doing our own shopping activity in groups. For the sixth

lesson, I will tell students that we are going to learn about how people all over the world receive

goods by watching a video about where chocolate comes from and by doing our own activity that

involves sharing goods. The summative lesson, I will tell students that we are going to look back

at our anchor chart and make sure we answered all of our questions. I will also tell them that we

will do a quick Plickers assessment, and then create our own posters about what it means to be a

smart shopper. When deciding the objectives for the students throughout this unit, I made all the

words child-friendly to the vocabulary levels in this classroom. I decided to keep certain terms in

the objectives such as, consequence, decision, and efficient because based on the students prior

knowledge, they are already familiar with these terms. This prior knowledge information that I

obtained, was by analyzing the pre-assessment data from the first day. I kept some of the terms

from the unit in the objectives, as stated previously, to maintain appropriate objectives for this

class. I also made sure to keep the objective to the point, and to give a quick overview of

different activities we will be doing that day to ensure that they know their expectations.
Motivate and Engage Students
To motivate students and engage them, I decided to create interesting beginnings to each

lesson, as well as incorporating some hands-on activities and creative writing activities. I decided

to create new ways for the students to do writing activities, because they do worksheets a lot in

their classroom, and I wanted to make this unit as engaging as possible for them. I implemented

the use of videos a lot in the beginning of my lesson, and once during a lesson. This was because

from previous experience, the students are very motivated by watching an engaging video before

a lesson. The students also responded well to a book reading video a few weeks prior, so I knew

they would respond well to the book reading video I had planned. Also, using the online book

reading video gave myself time to observe and monitor their work during the video. Another way

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I engaged students was through hands-on activities. The hands-on activities such as the trade

simulation or the assembly line simulation really made the lesson more concrete for them as well

as fun. I wanted to incorporate hands-on learning to engage the students and to get them moving

around some. I motivated students by making the writing portions more engaging. I tried to do a

lot of group discussion before writing, to give all students a quick review of what we had done in

that lesson and to hear ideas from peers. Another way I made writing more engaging was by

creating different organizers for the students to write on, to give them something new. By

engaging the students, I promoted creative thinking skills from the students. The simulation

hands-on activities followed by group discussions engaged the students in thinking creatively

and participating in the large group discussions about social studies content. I guided students to

think creatively by asking guiding questions after activities, videos, or any other components of

the lesson, to involve them in higher level thinking about the important concepts in each lesson. I

also used these whole group discussions after activities to summarize the important points of

each lesson, by guiding the students to talk about them as a group.

Introducing New Skills and Knowledge & Using Formative Assessments
When introducing new knowledge and modeling new skills, I made sure to use information

from the pre-assessment to revise my lessons. When revising my lessons, I took information that

was not clear to the students during the pre-assessment, and made sure I taught the new content

by breaking it down to language that they can understand, and by incorporating more concrete

learning such as through hands-on activities. For instance, when doing the trade lesson, I created

the trade simulation activity to give students a hands-on learning experience of what trading is

like and why the world trades goods. I would model new skills whenever the class had to do a

hands-on activity. I made sure to show them step by step instructions on how to complete the

task, I asked questions aloud to clarify that they understood, and I asked the class if they had any

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questions about what they were to do. I modeled an actual trade of goods using a student

volunteer, to give the students a visual of how to do the activity. I also modeled the organizer

they had to fill out during the apple pie book reading lesson. The book includes many resources

throughout, and I wanted to make sure the children knew how to determine the resources and

which column it should go under. Then, the next resource in the video, I stopped the video and

offered guided practice by asking the question and allowing them to answer it. When using

Plickers the last day, I modeled answering a question to review how to use Plickers in case they

forgot.
To offer independent work and feedback, I would monitor student work on formative

assessments that were completed, and I would offer feedback by either writing comments on

their assessments, or by talking to them and re-teaching concepts if necessary. This is also how I

would use formative assessments to check for understanding. If there were any concerns with a

few students, I would reteach the concepts to them individually after the lesson. If a large amount

of the students in the class had concerns with a concept, I would also choose to do a quick review

the next day to clarify the concept better. For example, after the lesson about the three different

types of resources used to make goods, I decided to reinforce those concepts by referring back to

them throughout the rest of the unit. I did this because I had reflected on the lesson, and decided

that the class could use extra reinforcement of those concepts particularly to help them

distinguish capital and human resources from one another. In order to ensure that I used

appropriate assessments, I examined the learning needs in the classroom and implemented age-

appropriate assessments to administer throughout the unit.

Incorporating Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Throughout this social studies unit, I made sure to take every students learning needs into

account when planning the lessons. I incorporated the principals of UDL in my lessons by taking

into account the students who learn best from listening to others, those who learn best expressing

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verbally, those who learn best through visuals, and those who learn best through hands-on

activities. I integrated all learning styles present in my classroom into each of my lessons, to

ensure that all students are given equal opportunity to learn in the best possible way that they

can. I included multiple means of engagement through videos, visual charts, and hands-on

activities. To include multiple means of representation, I made sure to incorporate informational

videos for the students to gain information from. I also represented the social studies content

through literature. In one lesson, I had the students read the nonfiction text At the Market with

a partner. I also held discussions throughout the lessons to reinforce content and administered

simulation activities to portray social studies concepts by connecting it to the real world. To

include multiple means of action and expression in this unit, I gave various ways for students to

show their thinking and learning. For example, I integrated large group discussions for students

to express their learning verbally. I had also included writing throughout the lesson for students

to express their thinking through written expression. Lastly, I included activities that involved the

children to complete hands-on tasks, such as trading goods with others and gluing them on

their trade recording sheet. I included hands-on activities to allow opportunities for students to

demonstrate their learning in a different way other than writing or with verbal responses.
Part D: Analysis and Instructional Decision-Making
In order to track student learning achievements throughout this unit, I made a chart to track

each of the five students grades on the assessments. The chart is shown below:

Student Pre Resour Apple Pie Technolog Markets Shoppin Shopping Trade( Summativ
(F) ce Resources y(F) g (F) Wise/Unwise F) e (S)
Sort(F) (F)
LB W W I I I I I I I
MJ W I I I I I I I I
MM W W I I I I I I I
AC W I I I I I I I I
SW W- I I I I I I I I
Student Achievement

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 Based on the information regarding student achievement in this chart and anecdotal records,

all five students needed instruction on the concepts of what human, capital, and natural resources

are based on the pre-assessment data. The first lesson of the unit, after the quick pre-assessment,

as a class we had a discussion about what these different types of resources are and what they

look like. After the whole group discussion and a video on bartering goods, I had the class split

up into groups of three to four students and complete a picture resource sort on chart paper, to

determine where the students were on differentiating between the three different types of

resources. On the pre-assessment, all students scored within the range of the W grade meaning

with assistance. This showed me that the students selected have a background knowledge of a

few of the concepts, but needed more instruction to become independent in thinking and

discussing the unit topics. The only pattern where some of the students received another W

grade on a formative assessment was after the first lesson regarding the three different types of

resources. Students LB and MM both received a grade of W on the resource picture sort

assessment. Students were to sort pictures of the three different types of resources under the

corresponding categories of: capital, human, or natural resource. The other three students that I

tracked student progress for received an I grade, but there were a few other students in the

class other than the two mentioned, that needed assistance and discussion about the differences

between the three resource types in order to complete the activity. Observing that some students

were still not independent with these concepts, I decided to do and extension on this lesson into

the next day to reinforce concepts and reteach to the class to ensure all students fully understand

these concepts from the lesson. The social studies standard indicator that this concept fell under

is Indicator 2. Explain the production process. This indicator for the standard has to do with

knowing and understanding the three different types of resources used to produce a good. For

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this retaught lesson, I showed a book reading called, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the

World. Students were given a three column T chart with the three different types of resources

separated just like the activity from the day before. I even included a small clipart picture to go

with each resource title for visual support. This book reading went in the order of natural

resources, capital, and then human resources, so I informed all students that was the order we

would go in while writing down any of the resources we hear under the correct column. For each

resource type, I modelled thinking about what the girl in the story needed as an ingredient, where

she went to get it, and recording what the resource was under the correct column. After this

activity, I had students share aloud different resources they recorded from the book, and had a

class discussion about what type of resource it was and why. I think re-teaching this lesson really

solidified the difference between the different types of resources because students were given

examples of how the resources can be used in real life, and they were able to listen to peers

discuss the types of resources and why. All the students I was tracking for student progress

scored an I on this formative assessment, showing me that this lesson was beneficial in helping

them understand the concepts. Another pattern I observed in student achievement were with the

next six lessons including the summative assessment. All students that I was tracking received an

I score on the six assessments, which reflected the majority of the entire class as well. Any

students other than the five I was tracking for this project that received a W on anything from

lesson two until the end of the unit, I retaught information from that lesson to the student

individually by conferencing with the student about what we did and the concepts learned to

ensure all students had access to learning and understanding each lesson. At the end of the

conference with the student, I always asked them to self-reflect on how they now feel about the

lesson by rating one through four, which is a consistent self-reflection tool we use regularly in

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this class, to ensure that they fully understood the lesson and feel confident about it. The

individual student conferencing was the only needed intervention needed in this case due to only

two students receiving a W on an assessment for the rest of the unit. This was also the most

efficient way due to there only being one student at a time that needed the re-teaching. For the

summative assessment, all students in the class earned an I grade, and no further instruction or

re-teaching was needed after ending the unit. For students: LB, MM, MJ, and AC the growth

made from pre to summative testing was increasing from a score of W (with assistance) to a

score of an I (independent). For student SW who scored W-on the pre assessment, this

student increased their score to an I for both summative assessments. All five students that I

tracked student progress for in this signature assessment showed student growth from needing

assistance in understanding and explaining these social studies concepts, to being able to

independently understand and explain them.

Part E: Reflection and Self Evaluation

Future Collaboration
For this social studies unit, I believe it would have been extremely beneficial to collaborate

with another staff member at the school. I think it would be beneficial to gather the second grade

team at least once before the social studies unit to discuss ideas on how to teach the concepts and

lessons, to make the lessons as engaging as possible. Collaborating with other teachers in the

grade that have to teach the same lessons, will put the whole second grade team on the same

page regarding this unit, and it provides opportunity to share new ideas, or strategies that have

worked in the past that could help this unit be successful.

Data-Based Reflection of Student Achievement
According to the student achievement growth from lesson 1 and lesson 2, the re-teaching of

concepts from lesson one, the instruction used to reteach these concepts were successful in

helping the students solidify the concepts from that lesson. This is proven through the scores the

students received on the formative assessment from lesson two. Students that struggled with
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lesson ones assessment, increased their score to an I (independent) after the lesson two

activity and assessment. My decision to reteach these concepts from lesson one through using a

book, visual aids, and modeling, according to the student growth data, was a successful way to

increase student achievement through a whole class intervention of re-teaching a lesson.

According to the data collected, students also obtained the highest scores for student

achievement from lesson two until the ending unit lesson, showing that instructions throughout

this lesson was effective. The use of class discussions, modeling my thinking of concepts,

implementing class simulations, and differing the format of the formative assessments day to day

helped make this social studies unit successful in helping the students to understand the concepts

being taught within this unit. The data on student growth that I have collected in the chart

supports these findings. Using simulations gave students hands-on learning experiences that

helped them to fully understand the concepts of the lessons which resulted in scoring an I on

the assessments after the simulations. For example, having the students complete an assembly

line simulation to emphasize the impact assembly lines and technology has on the production of

goods helped students learn this and explain this in their responses on the assessment after.

Varying the assessment tools used throughout this lesson kept students engaged in learning and

explaining their thinking. I know this because all students were engaged in the assessments and

were motivated in explain their thinking by using these various ways to do so. This way, all

different types of learning styles were incorporated throughout the lesson activities and the

lesson assessments to ensure achievement for all students.

Implications for Future Instruction
From this social studies unit, I have learned that using hands-on learning experiences followed

by group discussion enhances the students learning of concepts, and I will use this finding in

future instruction. Based on the students achievement data collected and from my observations,

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this class was engaged and motivated in the learning much more when I implemented a

simulation or a hands-on activity. I know this because after having students participate in these

simulations, I would hold class discussions about what they learned and I would let them lead in

explaining their thinking to their peers while I provide guiding questions. Listening to the

students input and peer input, I could gather that the hands-on activities effectively taught

students the concepts of the lessons by giving them real life experiences. Therefore in the future I

will include more hands-on and real world learning experiences to help students fully understand

the ideas being taught. Another idea from teaching this unit that I would carry over into future

instruction is to incorporate class discussions more often. Holding daily class discussions

regarding that days lesson really reinforced the concepts of the lesson, allowed time for myself

to make observations of student learning by having them explain their thinking, and gave

opportunity for others to listen and contribute to their peers thinking. I do believe that the class

discussions were a very important piece to teaching this unit, and I will definitely use that

strategy for future instruction.

Professional Learning Goals
Lastly, there are two professional learning goals for myself that emerged while completing this

project. One goal I had for myself was to understand the units content knowledge and to find

ways to effectively communicate the ideas of the unit to the children throughout my lessons. I

believe that by doing this assignment, I learned to track students progress during and after each

lesson in order to revise my teaching strategies and ensure that the most effective strategies are

being implemented based on the different learning styles in the classroom. I learned to observe

each students progress throughout the unit, and make observations on which activities and

assessment tools were most engaging and effective for my students. The second goal I had for

myself that emerged through doing this assignment was to be able to plan and implement

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effective assessment tools that accurately track student progress. I believe that throughout this

lesson I learned to vary assessment tools based on different learning styles in the classroom. I

also learned to constantly assess and observe students throughout the lessons by implementing

class discussions, and by asking questions while students complete activities to encourage them

to explain their thinking. I believe this is a very important goal that emerged from this

assignment because it taught me to constantly keep track of where my students are in

understanding the lessons ideas, and to infer if any students need intervention or enrichment.

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