“How will implementing the steps of student self assessment help improve student achievement in a high school classroom?”

Jason Boe


Seminar Title


“How will implementing the steps of student self assessment help improve student achievement in a high school classroom?”


Concept/Strategy

Focus of the Research


Student Self-Assessment


Grade Level

Research Was Applied


12th Grade


Relevant Grade Level

Connections


11th Grade


Discipline

Where Research Was Applied


Social Studies


Additional Discipline Areas

I see Application to


All Disciplines


Invitation/Commercial


Are you a teacher who is looking for a way to increase your students motivation level and investment in the classes you teach? If you are, then this is the presentation you want to be a part of. I am always looking for ways to motivate and to get my students to become more invested in learning. That’s why I decided to focus my action plan on allowing students to use self assessment as part of my US Government class. Self-assessment allows students to create meaningful goals and gives them more responsibility in not just what they learn, but how they learn. Students are given power through goal setting, student choice, feedback and self evaluation. It has helped my classroom to be a more student friendly environment and it’s allowed my students to become more successful and responsible learners. By the way, it’s also helped to take the grading workload off of my shoulders and puts it back onto the students. That’s a bonus that’s too good to pass up. I’m looking forward to seeing you this spring!


Abstract


I chose my action research plan based on questions that I have always had as an educator when it comes to how to evaluate students learning in my classroom. There are so many ways to evaluate and assess performance and so many different strategies to choose from that it can be an overwhelming topic. As I conducted my research of literature, I felt that using student self-assessment could be a valuable way for me to assess in my social studies classroom and it would also be a process from which students could develop life skills that they could use in other classes and after high school. I decided it would be best to focus on my 3rd period US Government class for my action research. The class is made up of mostly seniors that have various backgrounds in terms of the exposure and knowledge of our government. I chose this age level because I felt that the self-assessment process could be helpful to these students in their immediate future which includes graduating from high school. The first step that was introduced to the students was to create both long and short term goals for the classroom. Although this seems like a simple step in the process, it wasn’t. I modeled SMART goals and gave feedback which didn’t seem to be working very well. Eventually I was able to find a way to implement a goal sheet that actually got a better result from students and wasn’t just a generic goal like, “I want to get an A on the test.” After creating goals comes the practice. Students were given different summative assessments to help them develop their knowledge of different unit topics. These could be worksheets, reflections, journaling, etc. The key with these assessments was to give them feedback and then allow them to improve on their work if they needed to. The great thing about this step is that I wasn’t grading everything like I used to do. I used these assignments as practice. Once summative assessments were complete students were given a formative assessment (test or project) to show what they had learned. For data purposes, I used exam scores in order to determine whether my plan was working. I also used a student survey at the end of units to get data on attitudes and how much students themselves felt that they had learned. After analyzing this data, I have come to the conclusion that there is strong evidence that student self-assessment can be a valuable way to improve students growth and learning in the classroom. Students showed improvement throughout the semester which was demonstrated in their test scores. It was also demonstrated in the improvement they made in writing goals and reflecting on their own performance. I’m excited to say that this action plan is one that has changed the way I will teach in the future and I will start implementing it in all my classrooms.