BG1, Advanced Proficiency, 5th Grade
Pre-Observation Written Interview
Question: What is your big goal for the class?
All of my students will take the end of year state “Standards of Learning” exams in math, reading and writing and pass with a score of 400 or higher. Half of my students will score 500 which translates to an “advanced” score. In addition, students will demonstrate mastery of at least 80% of standards not included on the state exams through on-going assessments and culminating tasks. Half of students will achieve a 90% on these standards. By accomplishing these things, students will be able to move on to the next grade prepared to transition to the accelerated pace and increased academic demand of middle school.
Question: How do you know that your goal is standards aligned?
I spent a lot of time looking at the end of year assessments since I’m basing a lot of my goal on them. Fortunately, the state tests list exactly which standard each question is aligned to so it was easy to check whether it was standards-aligned and to pick out the standards that aren’t assessed in it. Even though they don’t cover everything, I wanted to keep the tests as a big part of my goal because I know that they are really important to the kids. Fifth grade is a big testing year in my state and if they don’t pass they definitely have to go to summer school and may be retained in fifth grade. So I decided to keep that as the goal for most of the standards and add other work and assessments to ensure mastery of the other standards that aren’t included. Mostly that means speaking skills and some types of writing. All of the math standards are covered by the test.
Question: How do you know that it is both feasible and ambitious?
I formulated the goal before the first day of school and did some preliminary research to get the best idea possible of my students’ actual performance levels. First, I pored over the fourth, fifth and sixth grade standards so that I could really internalize the expectations of what grade-level skills would mean, both for their past grade levels and for where they’re heading when I’m done with them. Then I spoke with each of the fourth grade teachers both about what realistic expectations would look like. I reviewed each student’s scores from the fourth grade reading test (there isn’t a fourth grade math or writing test) and half of them scored between 300 and 400 (on a scale of 0-600, 400 is passing) while the other half scored in the 200 to 300 range. Under 400 is considered failing so clearly all my students are below grade level, some more than others, but it seems feasible to me that we could aim to have them close the gap on the standards they didn’t meet from last year and master the standards for this year and that my highest level students, who comprise about half the class, could achieve advanced. I spoke with two CMs who taught in the district last year and they both felt that it was definitely feasible to get all my students to a 400 score on the fifth grade exam, but I would like to aim for the “advanced” score of 500 for my top students. This would mean that they were moving from below fourth grade level to above the standard for 5th grade in reading. I know that it is ambitious given where they are starting but, first, I think it would be really good for their self-confidence as students and, second, I know that the move to middle school is where a lot of kids really fail. I think if I can ensure that they have a really solid grasp on reading, writing, and math that their likelihood of success will be much higher. Finally, the first week of school I gave them diagnostics in reading, writing, and math, which really helped me complete the picture of their current performance levels (which had changed since last year’s standardized tests were given). I then used the diagnostics results to modify and complete my long-term plan and calendar.
Question: How will your students demonstrate progress toward this goal and how will you track their progress?
The biggest tool for demonstrating their mastery will be the end of year exams. To prepare them for that and to mark their progress, I will give them end of unit tests that use released items from those tests that are on the DOE website. There are two kinds of standards that are not on the exams: 1) organizing and delivering oral presentations (which I will have students do once a quarter using a standards-based rubric to evaluate it) and 2) writing for a variety of purposes. For those I will organize my writing units by types of writing (descriptive, persuasive, informative, etc) and have their summative assessment be a final writing product which I will evaluate using the same rubrics that will be used on the state writing exam so that they will be familiar with them. Each student will keep a personal list of objectives in a folder for each subject, and s/he will mark them off as they are mastered. I will post a class graph to show their group progress toward our goals.
Question: What will it look like if a student achieves your goal?
In reading it would mean that a student could read both fiction and non-fiction more independently and with a deeper level of comprehension. Part of this is that they will need to be functioning with a grade level vocabulary and feel confident about how to find the meaning of unfamiliar words. The big leap in fifth grade fiction reading skills is that the students read longer works and are expected to have a more subtle understanding of the way that the writer develops characters, plot, and setting. They also need to be able to explain orally and in writing the connections they see between texts. The bigger area of development is in non-fiction reading. This is often the big holdback in middle school. So if students are going to meet my goal they have to be able to understand how different kinds of information sources are structured and then be able to use them at a higher level. They not only have to be able to find information, but to start to be able to distinguish between fact and opinion, recognize appropriate evidence to support an argument, and be able to organize the information for another use. When they can do this, they will be much more successful in content classes like science and social studies.
In writing there are two big areas that they need to succeed in. First, they need to have a solid grasp on grammar and punctuation rules so that they can edit and revise their own work and the work of their peers. That’s a big part of the end of year test and they won’t ever be able to do well in school if they don’t master those skills. So I want them to really know all of the basic punctuation, capitalization, and grammar conventions and to be able to use them in practice. The more important issue is that in fifth grade they are expected to be able to write for a specific audience and to use more precise language to convey mood and meaning. They also have to understand how writers change the vocabulary and structure that they choose depending on the purpose of their writing. So by the end of the year I want them to be able to write multi-paragraph pieces: a) in different genres, and b) that very clearly convey their perspective in a way that reflects the depth of their thoughts and feelings instead of a watered down version that is limited by vocabulary or simple sentence structures.
For math it means that they have a really solid ability to use all of the basic operations with whole numbers and can mostly do the same thing with decimals and fractions. They have to at least be able to add and subtract with negative numbers. I want them to be able to do these operations not only with a straightforward problem but also to figure out which operations to use to solve a problem that is not set up for them. So that if they face a real world math problem they are able plan how they would attack it. To do that they not only need to know their number facts but also understand the relationships among the operations. They need to master exponents and their patterns as well as simple factoring as a first step toward algebraic understanding. I also want them to be able to build on their geometric knowledge so that they not only know shapes and their properties, but can use measurement skills to find areas and angles. Also there are several standards related to data and probability so they have to be able to create and interpret graphs and find the median and mode of a set of data. To really meet the goal, they should be able to do these tasks algorithmically as well as to apply mathematical reasoning to a problem.