Professor M. Scott

Alex BusickProfessor M. ScottSced 4611 November 2011Validated Practices ProjectTopicBel Air Middle School is a school located in a predominantly White suburb of Baltimore,Maryland. The community is an upper-middle class area with parents that are extremely involved in their children’s educations. In Harford County, the average household income is $83, 626 and the average home sales price is $252, 864 (ESRI and U.S. Census Fact Finder, 2011). The students of Bel Air Middle are in sixth to eighth grade, with ages ranging from eleven to fourteen years old. The students I taught during my Validated Practices Project were in eighth grade and their ages ranged from twelve to thirteen years old. The percentage of students with 504 plans at Bel Air Middle School is less than 5% (MSDE, 2011b). The percentage of students receiving special education services at Bel Air Middle School is 10.3% (MSDE, 2011b). The percentage ofFARM students at Bel Air Middle School is 14% (MSDE, 2011b). 60.3% of students at Bel Air Middle School scored advanced on the MSA reading test, compared to 45.9% of students in the state of Maryland who scored advanced on the MSA reading test (MSDE, 2011a). For my project, I taught my sixth period U.S. History class. This group of students is well-behaved and mostly above grade-level in term of academics. The students in this class are highly engaged and motivated during every class period which allows me to successfully use a wide variety of instructional strategies. In this class there are twenty four total students, comprised of nine girls and fifteen boys. The class contains twenty White students, two African American students, and two Hispanic students. There is no ability tracking for students in the Social Studies department at Bel Air Middle School. There are two students with IEP’s in my class. On the MSA reading, eleven students scored advanced, twelve students scored proficient, and one student scored basic. When choosing my texts, I considered the students’ reading abilities by assigning a higher-level primary source reading (#2- The Declaration of Independence) to my students who scored 415 or above on the MSA reading (fourteen students) and a lower-level reading (#1- Declaration of Independence) to my students who scored below 415 on the MSA reading (ten students). The readability of the higher-level reading was an 18.6 on the Flesh-Kincaid scale, but this reading had some summarization and vocabulary tools in the margins that students could use for assistance. The readability of the lower-level reading was a 6.6 on the Flesh-Kincaid scale. I used a DRL lesson to teach this reading to students. The DRL included an anticipation guide, a graphic organizer which utilized the during-reading strategy of summarization, and a think-pair- share activity. My consideration of content is evident in my decision to have students analyze a primary source document (The Declaration of Independence) and think about how that document affects their personal lives as Americans. I also considered the students’ appreciation of visual and social learning when I decided to use a video clip, images, and lots of in-class discussion. I decided to use a graphic organizer because I knew that scaffolding these difficult readings would help students of all cognitive ability levels to better understand the reading as a whole. This strategy was particularly useful for both of my students with IEP’s because they are both coded to use graphic organizers in their IEP’s. I also allowed extra time on the assessments for both students with IEP’s, as this is required for each of their plans. In terms of emotional abilities, I tried to make each day as engaging as possible by using various visuals, discussions, demonstrations, and unique assignments (such as writing their own Declaration of Independence) in order to make the learning emotionally meaningful for all students. Discussions also helped to appeal to the social learning abilities of this class because this particular class enjoys and benefits from discussions with their classmates. To specifically help my learner that scored “basic,” I paired him with the student who scored highest in the class on the MSA reading test. Both students can benefit from this pairing because the basic student gets high-quality help and the highly advanced student becomes an expert by teaching the content to another person.Curriculum Learning GoalsMaryland 8th grade VSC:Standard 1.0 Political Science TOPIC A. THE FOUNDATIONS AND FUNCTION OF GOVERNMENT INDICATOR 1. Investigate the evolution of the U.S. political system as expressed in the United States Constitution (MSDE, 2011c). Objective b: Explain and summarize the principles of federalism, popular sovereignty, rule of law, consent of the governed, separation of powers, checks and balances, majority rule, limited government and how they protect individual rights and impact the functioning of government (MSDE, 2011c). INDICATOR 2. Analyze the impact of historic documents and practices that became the foundations of the American political system during the early national period (MSDE, 2011c). 1. OBJECTIVE D: Describe the significance of principles in the development of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Preamble, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (MSDE, 2011c). NCSS Standards:II. Time, Continuity, and ChangeVI. Power, Authority, and GovernanceMy lessons incorporated NCSS Standard II (time, continuity, and change) when students described the differences between the United States’ attitude towards Britain before the Declaration of Independence and the United States’ attitude towards Britain after the Declaration of Independence. My lessons incorporated NCSS Standard VI and objective b under indicator 1 of the Maryland VSC by requiring students to define three foundational principles of American government: consent of the governed, inalienable rights, and social contract. My lessons incorporated objective d under indicator 2 of the Maryland VSC by requiring students to analyze the rights and feelings of the colonists prior to the Declaration of Independence; afterwards, students were required to explain how those demands and feelings led to the development of the Declaration of Independence. Objectives1. Students will be able to view images and engage in a class discussion in order to describe three tragic events that led to the writing of the Declaration of Independence (Day 1).2. Students will be able to define consent of the governed, social contract, and inalienable rights in order to explain the three fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence (Day 1). 3. Students will be able to perform a directed reading activity in order to summarize the four sections of the Declaration of Independence (Day 2).4. Students will be able to complete a think-pair-share activity in order to explain the purposes of the four sections of the Declaration of Independence (Day 3).5. Students will be able to write their own Declarations of Independence in order to apply the four sections of the Declaration to their personal lives (Day 3). The objectives I used for my lessons are designed to create a logical flow of events from just before to just after the Declaration of Independence was written. The objectives (#1) start by introducing students to the events that happened just before the Declaration, just so the students and I are working from a common point of reference. The next series of objectives (# 2, 3, and 4) covers the majority of the curriculum standards; these objectives focus on explaining the fundamental governmental principles found in the four sections of the Declaration. The last objective (#5) is designed to focus students’ attention on how those fundamental principles affect their personal lives as American citizens. These objectives lead students to ultimately understanding the principles of the Declaration, such as consent of the governed, which are some of the primary foci of the Maryland curriculum for eighth grade. I made these concepts accessible to my students by using real-world examples in my vocabulary lessons, such as using Facebook (a “social” networking site) as a clue to help define social contract. I also related the colonists’ hatred for the British to the Ravens’ hatred for the Steelers. Finally, I required my students to write their own Declarations to declare independence from their parents to help them comprehend the thought processes going through Thomas Jefferson’s mind as he wrote the original Declaration.Objectives number one and two gave students the background knowledge they needed on day one to be able to understand the main purpose of the Declaration of Independence in the remaining two days. Student knowledge of all three of the concepts from day one is assessed on my final assessment using fill-in-the-blank questions. Objectives three and four are utilized on day two and three’s lesson plans to help students read the difficult content on their own, then have the opportunity to clarify the information with a partner and as a class. Objectives three and four are assessed on my final assessment using various small test questions (like multiple choice or true false) and a BCR. Objective number five is an assessment on its own in that the assignment described in objective five required students to analyze the concepts learned on day two and then apply those concepts to their own lives.Assessment Plan The pre- and post-assessments I administered to my students were directly related to the objectives because all of the goals set in my objectives were designed to prepare students to be able to successfully answer the questions on my post-assessment. On my pre-assessment, questions one and three are related to objective number one. Questions two, five, and six are related to objective number two. Questions four, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven are related to objectives three and four. Question number eleven (BCR) is also related to objective number five. On my post-assessment, questions four and ten are related to objective number one. Questions three, five, and six are related to objective number two. Questions one, two, seven, eight, nine, and eleven are related to objectives three and four. Question number eleven (BCR) is also related to objective number five. The formative assessments that I used were mostly informal and largely involved oral questioning. Day one’s formative assessments included various questioning throughout the lesson which was done for two purposes: (1) to lead students to their own conclusions about why the three tragic events before the Declaration were so critical and (2) to lead students to construct their own definitions for the three vocabulary words that they were taught during day one. Day one’s final assessment involved me asking all students to put their notes away, followed by me selecting random students to explain the three tragic events and define the three vocabulary terms in their own words. Day two did not involve much assessment because this was the day that students read the documents and then filled in their graphic organizers (silent reading). The true assessment of the knowledge acquired during day two came on day three when I checked all students’ graphic organizers for completion and then listened to students’ responses during the pair activity and full-class discussion. I graded the graphic organizer for completion for two reasons: (1) I did not think it was fair to grade students on accuracy when this was their first exposure to such difficult content and (2) the students needed their graphic organizers that day to take notes and participate in discussion. On day three, I assessed student knowledge by walking around and listening to the discussion going on during the “paired” activity and then also by questioning students during our full class debriefing. I also assigned the “re-reading” assignment on day three. This assignment is the activity discussed in objective number five in which students would demonstrate their ability to relate the principles of the Declaration to their own lives by writing their own Declarations. Students wrote about declaring independence from their parents and this accomplished two things: (1) appealed to students’ pre-frontal cortexes by making the learning emotionally meaningful and (2) demonstrated higher order thinking by giving students the opportunity to synthesize all of the information they learned into one creative project. This assignment was assigned over several nights as homework and was graded for accuracy as well as completion. Students did not perform very well on my pre-assessment. Although students did perform better than I had expected, the class average on the pre-assessment was still 7.5 points out of fifteen which is a failing grade in Harford County. Most students knew that all men were created equal and that the colonists were declaring independence from England, but aside from that, most student knowledge was scattered and inconsistent in terms of what questions they got right and wrong. I considered the higher scores as a blessing, so I decided to assign the student declaration assignment at the end. I would not have assigned such a difficult assignment so soon if students weren’t so far along with the material already. I also spent more time developing vocabulary because many students struggled with “consent of the governed,” “inalienable rights,” and “social contract.” Also, students had a very difficult time answering the BCR question that required them to explain why the Declaration was written. As a result of this, I spent a lot of class time explaining the four sections of the Declaration and what purpose each of those sections served. Student performance during the lessons and during informal assessments gave me an idea of what students understood and what information students needed more time to learn. Students had a difficult time with vocabulary, so I spent more time in class reviewing the vocabulary in simpler terms. Also, many students struggled with the preamble, so I spent a lot of time in the class discussion talking about the purpose of the preamble and getting students to explain the preamble to their fellow students in kid vernacular. InstructionThe lessons that I wrote were all part of one large, three day DRL. Prior to day one, I administered my pre-assessment. On day one, I introduced students to the concepts they would need to be able to understand the actual Declaration. The first activity was a drill that reviewed content from the previous day. The second activity was a motivational activity in which students viewed a video about the Olive Branch Petition. The third activity tapped into students’ prior knowledge; I showed students images from the three tragic events that forced the colonists to write the Declaration. After showing the images, I asked the students questions to lead them to the idea about why the colonists were so angry at Great Britain. I used an analogy to compare the severity of the murder of Dr. Joseph Warren to the severity of Ray Lewis being murdered (hypothetically) by the city of Pittsburgh in modern times. The fourth activity was a vocabulary development activity in which I used images, examples and non-examples, and context clues to lead students to constructing their own definitions of “consent of the governed,” “social contract,” and “inalienable rights.” The lesson concluded with me informally assessing student knowledge of the day’s concepts by requiring students to put away their notes and orally answer questions that I would ask at random.On day two, I started with a drill that reviewed concepts of the previous day in order to connect day one’s learning to day two’s learning. After that, I explained the generic purpose for reading, the specific purpose for reading, and the graphic organizer to students. The students spent the rest of the period reading silently and completing their graphic organizers. I walked around and silently assessed students’ progress by watching students work on their organizers. On day three, I started with another review drill that connected the learning of day two to the learning of day three. After that, I quickly checked students’ homework while they shared their summarization of each section of the Declaration with a partner during the “paired” activity. Students were also required to share their question for each section with their partner and their partner would do their best to answer those questions. For this “paired” activity, students were grouped heterogeneously based on their MSA scores. Heterogeneous grouping helped because higher-level students were able to help teach the more difficult concepts to the lower-level students. After this, we had a full-class discussion of the four sections of the Declaration. Lastly, students were introduced to the “re-reading” assignment which required students to write their own Declarations in which they would declare independence from their parents. The last activity was the post-assessment which I administered at the beginning of the next class after day three. To help students understand the main concepts of these lessons, I used examples that students could relate to in their personal lives. For example, to explain consent of the governed, I broke the term down into two parts, “consent” and “governed”. After that, I used each word in a sentence to give students an example of how each of the two parts was used. My sentence for consent said, “The student got up to go to the bathroom after getting his teacher’s consent.” My sentence for governed said, “Citizens of America are governed by Barack Obama.” After asking students to explain what the two words meant separately, I had students combine the two words and write their own definitions. Finally, I asked students to share their definitions with the class, and then showed them my definition as a comparison. I used a wide variety of instructional strategies to ensure that all of my students would learn this content. I used slides, images, and a video clip for visual learners. I read every slide aloud and used a video (the audio of this) for auditory learners. I used think-pair-share for social learners. I also required students to construct their own definitions and write their own Declarations to make learning more meaningful. Varying student needs were met by allowing students to have extra time on the assessments if they needed it (only for students on IEP’s) and by using a graphic organizer to break the reading down into smaller parts.I made this content relevant by explaining that this document was responsible for founding our country and that this country would not exist without it. More importantly, I required students to write their own Declarations to understand the frame of mind that Thomas Jefferson was in when he wrote this critical document. By having students write out the complaints they had against their parents and the rights they felt they deserved, this allowed students to see how this document laid the foundation for our country because it outlined the principles that the people of America wanted back then and still want to this day. Overall, students seemed to respond very well to my lessons. The vocabulary priming took longer than expected, so I had to spend more time with that and I also had to give more examples on my own to help lead the students to their definitions. The video and images went extremely well, particularly when I prefaced them more as the day went on. The “paired” activity was somewhat chaotic at first, but once I explained the expectations a little further, students were very on task. Finally, the graphic organizer seemed to be beneficial because all students (even those of lower ability level) demonstrated strong knowledge of the four parts of the Declaration when prompted in the full-class debriefing. Analysis and Instructional Decision Making The class average went up twenty three percentage points from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment. This number is less than satisfactory to me as a teacher. However, students performed well during my informal assessments and students also achieved a class average of a high “B” on the assignment which required them to write their own Declarations. I believe that students met objectives one, three, four, and five. I believe students did not meet objective number two because that required them to be able to define consent of the governed, social contract, and inalienable rights; the post-assessments prove that my students are still not able to do this. Eleven out of twenty four students received a grade of less than eighty percent on the post-assessment; therefore, these students did not successfully meet the objectives. In the future, I would spend more time on priming vocabulary. I would use more examples and I would also add images to help the students have a visual representation for the new concepts. The next level of instruction would be learning about the battles of the Revolutionary War that occurred after the Declaration of Independence. These battles were necessary to ensure that the Declaration actually meant something and that the colonies became their own country. To teach these battles, I plan on using more directed reading activities, as well as more visuals such as maps and video clips. I would assess student knowledge of that new material by using an assessment that was similar to the assessment used for this DRL. Assessment items would include multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, and at least one BCR. Reflection and Self Evaluation The class average on the post-assessment was twenty two points out of thirty (73%). This is a significantly higher average than the pre-assessment. This shows student improvement not only because the scores were higher, but also because the post-assessment was slightly harder than the pre-assessment. Many more students understood the purpose of the Declaration and could accurately explain its four sections in the BCR on the post-assessment than could on the pre-assessment. Also, many more students knew examples of the complaints that the colonists had against the king. I influenced the learning of this content because I guided the students through each of the four sections of the Declaration using a graphic organizer, “paired” activity, and full-class discussion. Think-pair-share and summarization while reading obviously worked well because these are the strategies I used when explaining the purposes of the four sections of the Declaration. The strategies that did not work well were my vocabulary development activities. These activities included offering examples and non-examples and breaking words down into parts to explain the various concepts. Students still struggled with “consent of the governed” and “social contract” a great deal on the post-assessments; therefore, I should have spent more time explaining those concepts. I believe the strategies I used were good to start with, but I think I should have also assigned some form of writing activity to more carefully assess student knowledge of these concepts. In the future, I would add a writing assignment which required students to take their new vocabulary and apply it by constructing their own sentences with that knowledge. As a result of teaching this unit, I have developed two new goals for my future instruction. My first goal is to allocate more time for allowing students to construct their own ideas while utilizing new vocabulary in some form of written formative assessment. My second goal is to continue using graphic organizers and summarization/scaffolding during reading. This unit proved that no documents are too difficult for students to read as long as the documents are broken down into smaller parts. ReferencesESRI and U.S. Census Fact Finder. (2011). Population & housing demographics: For Harford county, Maryland. Retrieved from http://www.harfordbusiness.org/index.cfm?ID=147Maryland State Department of Education. (2011a). How did our performance compare to the district and state?. Retrieved from http://mdk12.org/data/MSA/CompareDistState.aspx?Nav=1.2:2.22:5.3:3.7:20.1:10.12:11.0372:15.8#bargraph-allgradesMaryland State Department of Education. (2011b). Students receiving special services. Retrieved from http://mdreportcard.org/SpecialServices.aspx?PV=36:M:12:0372:3:N:0:14:1:1:1:1:1:1:3Maryland State Department of Education. (2011c). Using the state curriculum: Social studies, grade 8. Retrieved from http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/social_studies/standard1/grade8.html Assessment Data Collection Basic Listing of Official Data- Impact on Student Learning Teacher: Alex Busick Year: 2011 School: Bel Air Middle Semester: Fall Grade: 8 Subject: U.S. History Student ID Code Possible Points Points on Percent Possible Points Points on Percent Score Change Pre on Pre- Pre- Score on Post- Post- to Post + or - Assessment Assessment Assessment Assessment 1 15 10 67 30 30 100 +33 2 15 3 20 30 24 80 +60 3 15 8 53 30 27 90 +37 4 15 7 47 30 27 90 +43 5 15 6 40 30 17 57 +17 6 15 9 60 30 23 77 +17 7 15 7 47 30 26 87 +40 8 15 Absent N/A 30 27 90 N/A 9 15 8 53 30 27 90 +37 10 15 8 53 30 25 83 +30 11 15 7 47 30 21 70 +23 12 15 7 47 30 10 33 -14 13 15 9 60 30 26 87 +27 14 15 6 40 30 17 57 +17 15 15 12 80 30 28 93 +13 16 15 6 40 30 13 43 +3 17 15 10 67 30 12 40 -27 18 15 3 20 30 13 43 +23 19 15 Absent N/A 30 28 93 N/A 20 15 8 53 30 25 83 +30 21 15 7 47 30 26 87 +40 22 15 10 67 30 23 77 +10 23 15 7 47 30 7 23 -24 24 15 8 53 30 21 70 +17 Class Average 15 7.5 50 30 22 73 +23

Professor M. Scott

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