Howson Essay Questions

Essay Questions: Week 1

Rachel Howson
UC San Diego Extension: Assessment of English Learners
8/21/16

Howson Essay Questions

In your experiences with assessment as a student yourself, reflect upon the extent to which you felt the
assessment was worthwhile and fair. Be as specific as you can about the type of evaluation, its intended
purposes, and the strategies that were used to implement it.

While obtaining my teaching credential in New York, I engaged in a number of

assessments in order to satisfy the requirements. For my coursework, I was evaluated based on
observations, lessons, units, and projects (essays, websites etc.). I felt that these assessments were
reflective of my knowledge and accurately demonstrated growth as a teacher candidate
throughout my program. I was provided with support and feedback while completing assessments
from my mentor teacher as well as a professor from the program. They both helped me to push
myself and really reflect on my work as a teacher.
One or more projects or papers from each course could be used to showcase a standard
for effective teaching, such as content knowledge, assessment, and collaboration, outreach, etc.
As my final assessment, these items were placed in a portfolio that was assembled at the end of
the program to demonstrate mastery of each of the standards. I felt that my work truly
represented my skills and accomplishments, and I sent it to schools where I applied, which was
one of the intended purposes. To me this assessment was worthwhile, as it helped me to recognize
my own strengths and areas for improvement, and was useful to me in acquiring a teaching
position.
Analyze your school and or districts assessment program in reading and language arts. Are reading
specialists available to help with the assessment and instruction of students with reading problems?
What happens to teachers district-required literacy assessment results? Are professional development
programs in place to assist teachers and administrators in analyzing results? Are new teachers
mentored by older teachers? Do grade levels work together to create rubrics and assessments?

As a district we are currently engaging in professional development to prevent students

from becoming long-term language learners. These training have been centered around the new
ELD standards and around project based learning as a means to improve academic outcomes of
our EL population. Our school has been in a transition phase with reading and language arts

Howson Essay Questions

curriculum and we are currently piloting two new programs, both which have a designated ELD
component. The hope is that we will have more unified assessments to provide us with more
accurate information about our students language acquisition and track progress in reading and
writing.
In previous years, we have worked as grade level teams to create reading/writing rubrics
and assessments, but the scoring criteria and rubrics varied dramatically from grade to grade. As a
result, we are working with the new curriculum so that our data is more consistent. We will
continue to work in grade level teams to analyze results and determine the effectiveness of each
program.
We have two reading specialists at our site who provide trainings for administering district
wide reading assessments, and who are responsible for determining students who are in need of
intervention. These assessments have been consistent for years, and are used to track district goals
and school progress. Our district required assessments are compiled in a database, and the
information is used to group students for designated ELD time and for reading intervention with
the reading specialists. Students are re-assessed at the end of each trimester and regrouped
accordingly.
Do you currently have ELLs in the classes you teach? If so, what problems do they appear to have
comprehending and learning the content? What strategies do you use to make both language and
content more accessible to them? How do you encourage other students in your classes who are more
proficient in English to play a role?

In my self-contained classroom, half of my students are language learners. Although there

are struggles that span across content areas, my language learners seem to have the most difficulty
with math. Last year, we noticed a gap between our language learners and native English speakers
in performance on our assessments, which we are hoping to address.

Howson Essay Questions

Our mathematics curriculum is built on the assumption that students are familiar and fluent
with high level academic vocabulary and discourse. This has presented my coworkers and me with
the ongoing challenge of finding ways to scaffold discussions and seek better means of relating the
context of problems students are presented with to make them more accessible to our students.
Last year was our first year with the new curriculum, which helped us to pinpoint common
struggles and discuss possible solutions.
This year we will pre-teach vocabulary, and students will each create a math journal that
students may utilize to review key concepts and vocabulary and access examples. We are also
hoping to make the program more hands on, by supplementing the curriculum with projects and
math games. I also encourage students to work together in small groups to accomplish their
work. I create heterogeneous groups, so that students have the opportunity to work with a more
proficient peer.