Lesson Plan Assessment Review

Search the Internet and locate two lesson plans that you feel have a strong assessment component.
Create a new entry in your learning journal; title it "Lesson Plan Assessment Review."
Provide links to the lesson plans and describe how the assessment components of each plan provide a clear and meaningful demonstration of student achievement.

I chose the following lesson plans based on the fact that I will be teaching English next year. Although I will be teaching older children, I chose two lessons catered to elementary students, as I thought they exemplified unique ways of evaluating students' understanding of the basic principles of grammar. I was using search engines to locate websites geared towards English lesson plans specifically and was able to find one that focuses on all grades and components of English and Literature, called www.webenglishteacher.com. This website was a portal for other learning sites and acted as a compilation of hundreds of English lessons scattered across the web.

The first lesson plan I chose originally comes from The New York Times' "Learning Network," titled: Enough About I-- Let's Talk About Me.

In this lesson students learn how to identify common grammar mistakes, and then apply what they have learned in their own presentations of grammar usage and rules. The lesson begins as a collective learning session, where students are given a handout of both correct and incorrect sentences spoken by President Obama. (I particularly like this lesson because it exposes students to more culture and politics, rather than generic made up sentences). As the students identify the incorrect usage, they are also encouraged to write down why they believe it is incorrect, and then review as a class. This allows for further assessment of actually understanding why something is what it is, rather than just knowing. When students begin to examine the "why" they have a better understanding and ability to remember in the future. By reviewing with the class, the teacher is able to asses whether the class as a whole is understanding, or if there are students who have not yet grasped the concepts. Then the students go on to read another article specifically about the differences between "you's and I's." They are again asked to identify the incorrect usage and why. This allows for repetition and a further assessment of the students' understanding prior to beginning the independent exercise. As the class is asked to think of other common grammar mistakes they, or someone else they know has made, the teacher is able to see if the students are able to apply the lesson they just learned beyond the limits of pronouns and "you's and I's." By creating a personal checklist of mistakes, students will be able to use this as their own assessment in future writing assignments.

I particularly like this lesson because it involves interactivity as a means of assessment. Rather than just handing out a work sheet to test for formative assessment, the students are engaged and probably will retain the information longer. Although I have not mentioned the second part yet, that is my favorite part of the assignment; small group skits. As groups work cooperatively to interpret their understanding of one of the common grammar mistakes, they are using creativity to reinforce the rules discussed previously. The class will be entertained while learning, and this allows for further assessment of the entire group's understanding for the teacher.



My second lesson plan originally came from a website called "Alabama Learning Exchange" or "ALEX." The lesson is titled: Parts of Speech "Blabbers."

This lesson plan is particularly interesting because it uses technology to create a fun and engaging way for students to learn about parts of speech. This entire lesson itself acts as a form of assessment, as students are believed to have already learned and have a strong understanding of the parts of speech from prior lessons. Students are assigned a part of speech and expected to write a two minute script including:
1. Definition of part of speech
2. Original paraphrased explanation of how the part of speech functions in a sentence
3. Original sentence using the part of speech as an example

The student then will select a photo from freegdigitalphotos.net (or another source of free photos) of an animal. The student then will upload their photo onto blabberize.com, record the voice of image using script from earlier, and save it as a video. The teacher then compiles all the videos together, creating a montage of students' videos of the eight parts of speech.

This lesson is interesting because it assesses the students' understanding of their particular assigned part of speech, while acting as a source of repetition by compiling those of the whole class.

Assessment Links

Link 1

I chose this link because it offered an in depth look into the process of determining how to create an assessment and the importance in doing so. It discussed the reasons for measuring for improvement and accountability, as well as a well laid out six step process that those responsible for the assessment process should follow.

Link 2

This link provides more of a look at assessing learning in a lower level academic environment, versus the more collegiate environment in the first link (although it can be catered to any academic level). The website includes descriptions of both summative and formative assessments, how to balance them, and various strategies to be used.

Link 3

This link provides access to multiple tools, tests, rubrics, and standards in what to look for when measuring assessments. There are examples of assessment guides posted by educators in various subjects across the board from elementary education, through college.