4.

Formative Assessment

Fall 2017

1. Last Name, First Name, and subject area:

Plont, Kenneth. Social Studies/History

2. Title of class (e.g. 11th grade American Literature, AP History, French II)

Sixth Grade Social Studies

3. Context of instruction.

Students have been studying the different types of governments, which include: dictatorship,

direct democracy, communism, autocracy, theocracy, oligarchy, among others. I have been

teaching them for duration of this unit, and the formative assessment came right after my

short lesson and activity on oligarchy. The formative assessment was simply just a writing on

assignment which reviewed the different types of government that they were learning about,

and focused on oligarchy. It also focused on how the terms (different types) could be used

interchangeably, and how they’re similar. After reviewing student’s answers on the

assessment, we will likely reteach concepts and things that seemed unclear or not well

understood by the students tomorrow and the next day. They will also be learning about

theocracy after this lesson.

Learning goal: students will understand the different types of governments and how they

relate to their own lives.

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 Claims-Evidence-Reasoning for HIT4:

I. Consulting the rubric for this HLTP—Identify a strength of your enactment, then:

4. Make a claim about the strengths you’ve identified in your effort to enact this HLTP:

The assessment that I crafted provided me with useful conclusions and information in determining

whether or not students understood material clearly and coherently, and from there I was able

to reteach in more effective and efficient ways. Even if they were mostly memorization-

based questions, it was telling, especially with the 12-13 kids who got every other question

correct or answered strongly, and couldn’t make the connection between an absolute

monarchy and oligarch. It made it apparent to me that I didn’t explain oligarchy clear enough

to them, or provide them with any useful analogies or modern examples that they could relate

to. From there, I improved my instruction. What was also telling is that most of the students

20-21 out of the roughly 30 kids got 5/6 of the questions correct, which tells me that I

probably explained things clearly to them.

5. Present evidence that supports your claim:

What was also telling is that most of the students 20-21 out of the roughly 30 kids got 5/6 of the

questions correct, which tells me that I probably explained things clearly to them in previous

lessons. Most students understood what a democracy/republic is, along with constitutional

and absolute monarchies. They also seemed to understand the basics of an autocracy, which

nearly all but 3 students got the questions on autocracy correct. In the video (3:45), when a

student asks “what do we mean by rule by a few for monarchy”, I clearly clarify that it could

be more than just three or four wealthy people, and that it could be a limited number of
 powerful individuals in comparison to the rest of the general populous. Kids seemed to

generally understand that an oligarchy is “rule by a few” and 20-21 of them got this correct,

which is roughly 70% of the class.

6. Explain your reasoning. That is, explain how your evidence supports your claim.

The fact that the students were able to recite and understand that an oligarchy is merely rule by a few

powerful and often wealthy leaders, nearly 70% of them, is evidence that I explained this

clearly and provided useful content that helped them understand at least what the definition

and foundation is. They were unable to transfer the knowledge to other types of government,

but without the basic definitional knowledge, the students will struggle with transferring the

term to other types of government that we learn about in class. Although the aforementioned

student question (3:45) is just one example of me explaining to one kid, perhaps other

students listened in and that helped clarify the term for them as well. For this, I would rank

myself as developing, because I was able to gain useful insight from my assessment of

student understanding and analysis.

II. Consulting the rubric for this HLTP—Identify a limitation of your enactment, then:

7. Make a claim about the limitations you’ve identified in your effort to enact this HLTP:

Throughout the duration of the lecture, and made evident by the student work on the

assessments, the conflation of absolute monarch and oligarchy was more confusing than

clarifying for the students.

Present evidence that supports your claim:

Even with students who gave the correct and coherent answers regarding the question “what is

an oligarchy and who holds the power?” nearly 12-13 of the students who answered that question

either answered the question: “is it possible to be an absolute monarch and oligarch?”

incorrectly, or left it blank, or filled it in with a question mark. Throughout the duration of the

video, I make misleading references to Kim Jung Un and Donald Trump as potential candidates

for being oligarchs. Political opinions and hear-say aside, the “textbook” and simplistic

definition of the term oligarch does not include these men. I never provided the students with a

clear, objective and coherent answer of what a modern oligarchy looks like, or who might be a

figure that represents such. In trying to make this relevant to their own lives, to match the

learning goal, I instead confused the kids and conflated irrelevant things or potentially too

esoteric of knowledge or content for sixth graders to comprehend.

8. Explain your reasoning.

This makes it evident to me, that I didn’t do a good job of explaining thoroughly how an

absolute monarch could also be considered an oligarch. Beyond that, in the lecture, I

conflate Donald Trump with being an oligarch throughout because “he’s rich” (5:00) and

it’s misleading. What’s also misleading is my reference to Kim Jung Un, Dictator of

North Korea, never clarifying to the students that he is in fact, not an oligarch, but an

autocrat and dictator. When a student asks if Kim Jung Un of North Korea could be

considered one because he’s rich, I didn’t correct the student, I merely just said that we

don’t really know how wealthy he is, but it is true that is probably much wealthier than

the general populous of North Korea (3:15). As far as Donald Trump goes, I hint that

some people believe that the U.S. has become an oligarchy, but never telling whether

that’s right or wrong (1:52). Without a clear example of a modern oligarchy, kids will
 never understand any potential ambiguity or nuance of an esoteric term. The assessment,

as a whole, was mostly based on memorization “what is this term? What is that? Etc.”

and provides little room for creative thinking. Therefore, because of its heavy (yet

intentional) focus on rote memorization, I would rank myself as a novice in crafting

proper and effective assessments.

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9. What other people/resources helped you think through and plan this formative

assessment; if any?

Dr. Jackson provided me with a “mentoring minds” resource that is used to generate analysis,

synthesis and evaluation questions and terminology when crafting lessons or assessments.

This helped me craft some of the questions and the direction that I took. Beyond that, my

cooperating teacher insisted on focusing on the basic, foundational stuff and the rote

memorization first. Without that, we wouldn’t be able to help them transfer knowledge or

build on basic definitional foundations, according to him.

10. Reflect: What did you learn from your efforts in HIT4? Come into everyday with

clear, coherent and useful analogies and examples of things. Just because Bernie Sanders

claims the U.S. might be an oligarchy, or that Chris Hedges’ book that I just read, the fact of

the matter is that sixth graders real-life and useful examples that they can comprehend. With

vague notions that North Korean leaders and Donald Trump could maybe be oligarchs, kids
will only be confused. I need to be abundantly clear and fully prepared with examples!

Beyond that, when trying to get students to see the comparisons between two terms, they

need clear examples of each, and why these examples are relevant and important. Saudi

Arabia would have worked as a useful example. Beyond that, if a student is clearly confused,

like when the student asked if Kim Jung Un was an oligarch because he was rich, it

should’ve been made clear to that student that he is a dictator and isn’t considered an

oligarch. Without this clarity, the terms all get muddy and mixed up in the student’s mind

and they will confuse different types of government with each other.