Tamara Griffith
Dramatic Academic Growth
Academic gains are the ultimate door opener – they are the foundation of a truly transformational teacher. Students make dramatic levels of academic growth (that is measurable and rigorous). Families know the level of rigor necessary for college and career readiness in the 21st century.
Introduction:
In order for students to make dramatic academic growth, I disaggregate both quantitative and qualitative data in order to adapt, modify, and differentiate instruction. Doing so allows me to create high-impact lessons and utilize targeted instructional methods to meaningfully address and target specific areas of student need. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data allows me to procure a holistic picture of students' strengths and areas of need; moreover, it allows me to better assess an accurate representation of student growth.
To assess students' quantitatively, I utilize the Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP). This rigorous and quantifiable assessment is given to students three times a year: fall, winter, and spring. In addition, this assessment is utilized to project students' academic readiness for the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA). By disaggregating MAP data, I am able to glean insight into my learners' strengths and needs within the literature, informational, and vocabulary acquisition standards, which I can then utilize to plan strategic lessons to address gaps in learning and understanding or to enrich foundational understandings. In addition, I share and discuss data from this assessment with both students and parents to better invest them in this assessment and help them understand students' academic progress with my content.
I also assess students qualitatively. This type of assessment occurs with greater frequency and encapsulates much of what we do everyday in the classroom. One particular way in which I qualitatively assess students is through writing. Over the course of the school year, students compose a variety of informational and argumentative essays in order to better prepare them to excel on the text-based writing portion of the FSA. By utilizing the FSA writing rubrics to assess students' writing, I am better equipped to gauge mastery of key writing skills, which allows me to adjust instruction to specifically target areas of student need.
To explore how my students make both quantitative and qualitative academic gains to demonstrate dramatic academic growth, explore the pages below. Also included within these pages are my reflections upon my students' achievements and the specific adjustments to instruction that helped propel my students toward greater academic achievement.
Conclusion:
In order to transform students' lives, they must receive a transformational education. A key component of that transformational education is having a teacher who disaggregates both quantitative and qualitative data to meaningfully adapt instruction to address students' specific areas of strength and need. To this end, I utilize several, varied assessments to gather meaningful data. These varied assessments provide me with a holistic assessment of student progress and academic growth, which I then utilize to design rigorous instruction catered to students' needs, thereby allowing me to establish a learning environment in which all students can succeed and achieve dramatic academic results. Although my students may just be beginning their middle school career, the skills and dramatic academic growth they achieve in my class propels them toward continued success in high school and beyond.