Alison Dunford

Analyzing Student Work Samples

1.

Earth Science Grand Canyon Brochure

(Note: I have lost the image of my Grand Canyon brochure in a computer
mishap. I believe they are still in my classroom, but the school is off limits
until the end of July. I will look and repost this.)
a. Standard - S5E1. Students will identify surface features of the Earth
caused by constructive and destructive processes.
Identify and find examples of surface features caused by destructive
processes.
Erosion (waterrivers and oceans, wind)
Weathering
b. Essential Question: How do constructive and destructive forces
change our earth? What are constructive and destructive forces that
affect the earth's surface?
c. Task: Utilize the information obtained in the Picture Perfect Check Point
Lab, the fiction and non-fiction trade books, and the unit inquiry
lessons to create a brochure about the Grand Canyon.
d. This is a reflection of my comments back on the rubric of a student
who had difficulty transferring the science of the lessons to the
creative nature of the brochure work. I also reflected on this in the
lesson reflection. My comments applauded the students artistic design
work and catchy slogan (on the rubric). The work was detailed and
showed great intent. Most of my students wanted to print a copy of a
map because it was so difficult for them to draw the country and mark
the Grand Canyon. This
student drew the map and it
was well represented. My
comments to this student
regarding definitions of
weathering and erosion
were positive also. The last
section of my comments on
this students brochure
requested a re-write of the
application of
understanding how the
Grand Canyon was formed
by weathering and erosion.
This student mixed up the
main ideas of weathering
and erosion, and also didnt maintain the understanding that this is still
occurring. I recommended a quick conference to re-read the nonfiction Grand Canyon trade book and look at the photos.
To better serve all students on this project, next year, I will develop my
own rubric and checklist that is more if a graphic organizer so students
can have a document to work from. I believe this will aid me in
providing better formative feedback prior to a summative project.

2. STEM Project AIMS Circuit Quiz Boards

a. Standard - S5P3. Students will investigate the electricity, magnetism,
and their relationship. b. Determine the necessary components for
completing an electric circuit. c. Investigate common materials to
determine if they are insulators or conductors of
electricity.
b. Essential Question:
How does a basic
electric circuit work?
How are conductors
and insulators
different? What are the
uses of electricity and
magnetism in everyday
life?
c. Task: Student Teams
will use the AIMS
-Build A Circuit Quiz
Board lesson materials
to make a lightbulb
light up (or buzzer, or
rotate a pinwheel, etc.)
when a test question is
connected to a correct
answer.
d. This is a reflection of
my evaluation: I love
this project because the
objectives are met if the light bulb lights up. My praise for this team
was plentiful in terms of the science. They extended their T-technology
learning in a big way by working out a way to type the quiz and
answers on a scan of the photo in PowerPoint. This team also went
above and beyond with the S-Science by learning how to rewire an LED
in parallel and put in series so it would work in their circuit. The team
chose to have a green LED leaf as a challenge to the regular light bulb
in series. I also had comments about the collaboration of this teams
work and how it affected the E-Engineering component of STEM. This
project takes a long time to engineer and the quiz questions (all
standards based for Milestones Review) take a long time to develop
and answer correctly. There are many elements to this project! This
team argued constantly about everything. My comments to them
about this were reflective questions. What was the value of arguing as
scientists? What changed in your team that allowed you to pull
together to complete the project? How would you address your team
differently about another project? I thought this was a better feedback
opportunity than just marking them down for bad group work
dynamics. They could learn from the feedback instead.

My comments to the team would be enhanced if a rubric was used.

AIMS does not have a checklist or rubric with this project. Next year I
can create my own. It should also have a student self-reflection
component that includes collaborative work.

3. Performance Task with recommendations for next steps:

a. Essential Questions: How can scientists identify organisms they have
never seen before? Suppose you discovered a plant or animal you had
never seen before...
How would you figure out what it is? Are we doing the work of
scientists?
b. Task: Students will work collaboratively to create a dichotomous key
from my materials provided (animals, minions, buttons, cars, etc.) or a
DYI key starting from scratch. Because of schedules at this time of the
year, most students were working in groups of 5 or so. Some students
chose to work independently and some had to work independently.
Group Sample

Independent Sample

c. This is a reflection of my evaluation on the independent sample. I

believe I did a great job on evaluating this performance task for 110
students. First, in order to give my students an opportunity to practice
evaluation at a higher level, I taught them to give feedback that was
based on the science of a dichotomous key, rather than if it was
pretty or if was a cool idea. I wanted them to solve the keys and give
feedback where and when there was a problem with the key. This was
done on the yellow post-it notes. Overall, they did a good job with this,
with only a few snarky comments or cheerleading going on. Then,
after they finished this evaluation, they could place one blue post it
note on their most favorite key. All of the students participated in this
as it was actually part of their own grade solving dichotomous keys. I
also wanted to be concise in my feedback since there was already so
much feedback for each team, or for each key. For the second sample,
I advised the student that some students had worked past an obvious
problem, while some students indicated they were stumped and could
not work through the key. I advised that the student figure out a way
to address this problem on her own (labeling the samples) and report

back. I also requested additional thinking on the layout of the

dichotomous key. I taught several formats all horizontal and vertical
and advised the classes that some were more conducive to more or
less information needed. I thought this method of evaluating student
work went very well. The students had complete ownership of the
good and the work needed to make their performance task project
better.