Meredith Plummer: Project Learning Curve

Project Learning Curve was a key assessment of my student teaching.  In this report I provide a lesson, a description of two different pre and post assessments, research and reason as to the strategies and assessments which I employed in my teaching, and an analysis of the results of the assessments.  I received full credit on this assignment. 

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Section 1: Lesson Foundation

1.      Project Explanation

In the fifth grade at Amanda Elementary in Middletown, as part of the Language Arts curriculum, the students are expected to learn how to summarize.  Therefore, the goal of the unit was to teach students how to summarize.  Previously, the students had learned how to question, make inferences and predictions.  In addition, while the students were learning how to summarize they were periodically meeting to discuss books in small cooperative groups.  The goal of this unit relates to previous learning by extending students understanding of reading strategies.  Additionally, the goal of this lesson worked in cooperation with the small cooperative groups in order to enhance their understanding of their books.  Finally, the ability to summarize will help students to incorporate new textual information into their schema throughout the course of their lifetime.  Therefore, the ability to summarize will assist students throughout all of their future learning.

I opened my unit by presenting the students with different article titles and stating how article titles are, for the most part, examples of good summaries.  By drawing a comparison between article titles and good summaries, the students were able to see the real world applications of summarizing.  And, when the articles presented were about Middletown, there was a high level of engagement.  From there, I linked the seven characteristics of a good summary (concise and contains the 6 W’s  - who, what, when, where, why, and how) to the elements found in many article titles, and had the students identify and create good article titles of their own.  I concluded my unit by asking the students what they planned to do the next time someone asks them to summarize.

1a.       Curriculum Justification

State Standard:

Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self –   Monitoring Strategies.

Benchmark:

B. Apply effective reading comprehension strategies, including summarizing and making predictions, and comparisons using information in text, between text and across subject areas (p. 164).

Indicator:

Summarize information in texts, recognizing that there may be several important ideas rather than just one main idea and identifying details that support each (p. 207).

Lessons Objective:

The student will recognize the seven qualities of a good summary and be able to write a summary that contains these qualities

2.      Appropriateness or Lesson Plans

The lessons were made appropriate by modifying to fit the needs of IEP and gifted students (there are currently no 504 students), as well as the needs of high achievers and those students who need remedial work.  Specifically, if the certain lesson allowed for it text was tailored to a student’s specific reading level.  When leveled text was not appropriate, those students who were on an IEP, along with those who needed remedial work, were granted the ability to work in groups with an aid or teacher.  The aid or teacher would then read to them the certain text.   Finally, the aid or teacher would scribe for the students whose IEP deem it necessary.  Beyond providing leveled text, the gifted and high achieving students were left virtually alone to complete their tasks and were asked to extend their thinking.  They did so by identifying good article titles/summaries without an attached text, and by verbally summarizing their entire cooperative learning book.

3.      Strategies and Resources

I was able to teach summarizing in three lessons using three different strategies.  The first lesson used a strategy that was mixture of hands on and guided practice.  First, the students were presented with article titles, using an overhead, and the notion that article titles are like good summaries (Jones, 2008).  Then, they reviewed the six W’s (who, what, when, where, why, and how).  I explained to them that these W’s are the foundation for a good summary.  Then, students were called upon to identify the W’s in each article title.  Next, the students were given three articles and nine good to bad article titles.  With these, the students were given the opportunity to, individually, identify good article titles.  Finally, the class reviewed the article titles they identified individually, and the W’s within them.

            The second lesson used small groups to identify the elements of and to create a good summary.  First, the students were presented with a choice of news articles.  Then, the small groups gathered and read their articles.  Next, the students were given a random index card.  On the back of each card, the students had one of the six W’s.  Each student was to identify their specific W within their news article.  Then, as a group, they created an article title (Green and Tyner, 2005) which they wrote on a piece of oversized paper.  Finally, after each group had created their own article title, the new titles were compared to the originals, with the use of transparencies, and the differences were discussed.

            At last, the third lesson employed a worksheet in order to help the students summarize independently.  In this lesson, the elements of a good summary were reviewed and the students were provided with leveled articles from “Time: for Kids” and a GIST worksheet (IRA/NCTE, 2008).  The students were, then, supposed to read their article and fill out the GIST worksheet, which included a space to identify the six W’s and a space to summarize using twenty words or less.  The students were encouraged to underline information in the text before transferring it onto the GIST worksheet.

The overhead, which I used in the first and second lesson, was the only technology employed.  While Amanda does have a projection system linked to their computers I opted not to use it for several reasons.  First, the overhead provided the means for me to use transparencies of actual article titles.  And, in addition, the overhead provided me with the ability to underline the critical W’s within the article titles.  Second, while I could have used the projection system to stream news articles on to the projection screen, I could not have written on the projection screen, nor could I have eliminated the title from the streamed news article.  And, finally, while I had thought about having the students create a summary from a news show, ultimately I wanted the students to learn how to summarize a written text.  Therefore, the overhead was the perfect piece of technology for my needs.

4.      Lesson Plan

1.      Title: Identifying a good Summary

http://www.readingquest.org/strat/summarize.html

2.      Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008

3.      ODE Standard

 Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self-Monitoring Strategies Standard

4.      Benchmark

B.     Apply effective reading comprehension strategies, including summarizing and making predictions, and comparisons using information in text, between text and across subject areas. (p. 164)

5.       Indicator

4. Summarize the information in texts, recognizing that there may be several

important ideas rather than just one main idea and identifying details that support each. (p. 207)

6.      Student Performance Objectives:

Daily Goal: The student, given an information text, will recognize the 7 qualities of a good summary 70% of the time.

Long Term Goal: The student, given an informational text, will recognize the 7 qualities of a good summary 70% of the time and be able to write a summary that contains at least 5 of these qualities.

7.      Materials/Resources Needed:

3 different title-less newspaper articles (Class set)

9 different article titles (3 per article per student, 1 good, 1 bad, and 1 great)

Extra article titles for the gifted and high achievers (10 sets of 9 titles)

4 Sample article titles (overhead)

Post – Assessment One (class set)

8.      Procedure: Day 1 of 3                               Time Estimate: Day 1: 30 Min.; Day 3: 15 min.

Opening:

Present the students with several examples of article titles.

‘People summarize every day.  Here are some examples of some summaries’

Body:

Have the students determine what makes a good article title (i.e. concise, has the 6 W’s - who, what, when, where, why and how).  Discuss how an article title is just like a summary, and, that all summaries should have the 6 W’s.  Present real and false article titles, ask the students to pick out the best and discuss why one article title is better than another.  Identify the W’s within an article title.  Have the aid pull IEP, and remedial students over to a specified table.  Give each student 3 short articles and 9 titles.  Have the students circle the best article title.  Circle the room to check comprehension.  Then, when everyone is done, have volunteers come up to the front of the class to identify the best titles.  Again, identify the W’s within the article titles.  In a couple of days, have the students complete ‘Post-Assessment One’ in which after reading a brief paragraph the student will have to identify the best summary out of four options.

Closure:

Have the students recite what should go into an article (the 6 W’s).  Ask the students to try to summarize their books for their next book group meeting.

Differentiation:

Those students with an IEP, or those who need remediation, will have the aid present to read the articles and the article titles.  In addition, The IEP students will have the aid present to check their matching.  Beyond identifying appropriate article titles based on an article, the gifted and high achieving students will also have to identify appropriate article titles without any article.

9.      Assessment:

The students, in several days, will complete 2 worksheets.  In ‘Post – Assessment One,’ the students will identify the best summary for a given text 70% of the time.

Section 2: Assessment Plan

1.      Description of Pre / Post Test Assessment Instruments

The goal for this unit relates to the indicator which it measures because they both identify that there are several important ideas/details of a text which should be included within a summary. Specifically, the goal of the unit called for students to learn how to identify the seven qualities of a good summary 70% of the time, and for the students to be able to write a summary with at least five of those qualities.  Ultimately, the assessments relate to the indicator because they relate to the goal of the unit.  Pre and post assessment one, each dealt with the first part of the goal while pre and post assessment two each dealt with the latter part of the goal. 

For both pre and post assessment one, there were five multiple choice questions, along with one set of grade appropriate text for each question.  For each text set, the students had to answer a multiple choice question in which they were to identify the best summary for the text.  By using the instrument of multiple choice, it was thought that the students could identify easier.  For each question, the best summary was always the one that had all the seven qualities of a good summary.    If the students identified four out of five good summaries they would have shown that they were able to identify the seven qualities of a good summary. 

For pre and post assessment two, the students were asked to read a grade appropriate paragraph and create a summary based on the seven characteristics of a good summary.  The paragraph was contained on a page which also provided a space for notes and a space for them to write a summary.  This allowed the students to take notes as to the 6 W’s of the paragraph.  The final summary was measured against a rubric which simply measured whether or not the summary had each of the seven qualities of a good summary.  The rubric was the best instrument of measurement for this assessment, because it allowed me the opportunity to measure the summaries objectively.  If the students were able to meet five out of the seven qualities of a good summary, then they would have shown they could summarize.

2.      Description of Data Collection Process

I gave my first two assessments on September 29^th and 30^th.  Due to complications in scheduling, I could not begin teaching this unit until October 7^th.  While the unit was meant to last only three days, it continued from October 7^th through October 14^th, splitting each lesson between two days.  On October 15^th I finally gave each post assessment.  Collecting data from each of the assessments was easy.  For pre and post assessment one, the number of questions each student missed was tallied on two separate pieces of paper.  For pre and post assessment two, the number of qualities a student missed was tallied on other sheets of paper.  In general, while many of the students still have difficulty identifying the characteristics of a good summary, the majority of the students can make a good summary.

3.      Assessment Results Summary

To be a bit more specific, the students do not show any real gain between pre and post assessment one.  For example, in both pre and post assessment one, only five people missed three questions.  And, while there does appear to be a little bit of gain – three students in post assessment one did not miss any questions at all – the gain is so little that one wonders if it is even significant.  However, pre and post assessment two tells an entirely different story.  In pre assessment two, 100% of the students did not receive a passing score (5 out of 7).  In addition, the majority of students missed either four or five qualities.  Yet, in post assessment two, all but four students were missing only one or two qualities.  In other words, all but four students passed the assessment.  Therefore, there is evidence to support the claim that while the students still have difficulty in indentifying the seven characteristics of a good summary, they are quite capable in their ability to summarize. 

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