Niki Berrington

Student Academic Progress Assessment

Goal Statement: By the end of my six day long unit all of my students will score at least a 75%
on the post-test or improve by 60%.
Setting:
For this assignment I analyzed the academic growth and progress of my first grade
students on a math unit. In this class there are 19 students total, 10 boys and nine girls. Of those
19 students, 17 are Caucasian and two are Hispanic. Within this class for math, seven students
usually perform slightly above grade level and the remaining students perform slightly below or
below grade level. There are four students who struggle with math more so than the rest of the
class and there is one student who has an IEP and a special education assistant in the room to
work with her during the math lessons. In the above grade level group, there are six boys and one
girl, of which five are Caucasian and one is Hispanic. There are two other students within this
class with IEPs for behavior. These two students usually have a behavior specialist in the room
during math to assist with any problems they may face. There are also seven students in speech,
two of which are boys and five are girls.
Content/Subject Area:
The unit I have chosen for my student academic assessment assignment is fractions. This
unit will consist of six lessons and the post-test will take place on the sixth day. For this unit,
students needed to be able to understand that fractions represent parts of a whole and that
fractional parts are equal shares of a whole. Students also needed to have an understanding of
halves, fourths, and thirds. Students must identify these various fractions and be able to write
these fractions when they are represented by drawings or concrete models. The pre and post-test

Niki Berrington
I gave to students required them to show a fraction by coloring a shape to match the fraction
given to them. I also included two questions that asked them to identify a fraction represented by
a picture.
Pre-Assessment:
The pre-test was ten questions long and each question was worth one point; in all the
assessment was worth 10 points. As expected, most students struggled with the pre-test and did
not perform extremely high. However, three students performed much better than expected on
this pre assessment by outscoring the rest of their classmates. Most of the class became very
frustrated with the pre-tests, because they did not know what was being asked of them. I had
many students who simply did not understand why they were being tested on something they
have not been taught. The two students who performed fairly well actually tried their best and
did not become frustrated just because it was something new and unfamiliar.

Pre-Test
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Niki Berrington

This graph shows my students scores on the pretest. Many of the students scored a 20% because
they read and answered the two questions on the back correctly. These were questions similar to
the ones asked of them on their math benchmark taken at the beginning and end of the year.
However, by looking at this graph it is clear that most of my students needed a lot of practice
with fractions to be successful on the post-test.
Means for attaining the goal:
Since I knew I was going to be teaching a very broad range of ability levels when
planning this unit, I wanted to utilize all of the teachers and teaching assistants in the room by
having some days of small group practice. This allowed students who were excelling and
understanding to move on and dig a little deeper into the material and allow students who may be
struggling to get the extra practice and one-on-one instruction they needed. The pre-test gave me
a good base line of where I needed to begin my instruction, but it is a little deceiving, because
the students who scored higher ended up being some of the students who needed more
individualized instruction and practice. I wanted to make this unit fun and very interactive for my
students so I planned lots of activities involving food and items they could physically divide into
fractions. I planned days where we would play games at the end of the lesson as a wrap up. Near
the end of the six days, I planned a center day where my students rotated around to five different
stations to play various fraction games and activities in small groups. On the last day of the unit,
I had a review Smart Board activity for students and I to complete before taking the post-test.
After the Post-Test, I planned a bowling activity so that students could put their use of fractions
to use in a real life scenario. In this activity, students would bowl and then write the fraction of

Niki Berrington
pins they knocked down. All-in-all, I really wanted my students to be fully engaged throughout
this unit in order to make sure they were successful on the post-test.
Analyze the results:

Post-Test
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

I administered the post-test on the very last day of the unit. The students and I completed
a Smart Board activity for review before the post-test was given and then students got to
participate in a fun bowling activity once they finished the assessment.
The graph above shows my students scores on the post-test. It is clear that many students
scored the maximum points on the post assessment and the rest of the students did fairly well.
However, student five scored a 50% on the post-test, because he subtracted the fractions. This
student was able to verbally identify fractions, but when he was taking the post-test he forgot
what he was supposed to do with a fraction. I was actually very surprised that more of my
students didnt make this mistake. Since we normally do not give very many formal evaluations

Niki Berrington
in first grade anything that is labeled as a test or assessment feels very serious and puts added
pressure on these young students. Student 15 is my student who has an IEP for academics. Her
pre and post assessment were read aloud to her. This students scored a 60% on the post-test
which was a massive improvement form the pre assessment. Most of the students only missed
one or two questions, because they were not carefully reading the questions on the back. These
two questions asked students to identify which fraction of marbles were colored black and which
fraction of marbles were colored white. Some students misread the color and thus missed the
question

Niki Berrington

Pre-test vs. Post-test

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Pre-test

Post-test

entirely.

The graph above shows the comparison between the pre assessment and the post
assessment. It is clear that every single student improved on the post-test. The students that
scored high on the pre-test did not have as much room to improve as the rest of the class, but
each of these students scored a 100% on the post assessment. If I were to change something
about my assessment instrument, I would bold the key terms in the two questions that gave
students the most difficulties. If I did this, I feel that students would have recognized that the two
questions were asking for different things and more students would have been successful on
these questions on the post-test.

Implications for further instruction:

Niki Berrington
In the future, I would spend some time completing an activity more closely related to the
last two questions on the pre and post-test in order to make sure students understood what was
being asked. If I would have been sure to explicitly say to students to be sure to read the
questions on the back carefully before they began to work on the assessment I think more
students would have earned full credit on the post-test. I do feel that this unit had a lot of chances
for students to interact with concrete materials, which made the material relatable to their
everyday lives. I also think that most of my lessons were very engaging for my students. I tried
to make sure I allowed my upper level students the chance to go a little further with the content
by forming smaller groups in which they could work ahead without getting bored. However, I do
feel that I could have formed smaller groups for instruction more often throughout this unit. I did
find that my upper level students did get bored at times with the slow pace we were taking to
assure that no one got left behind.
My goal was for each student to score at least a 75% on the post-test or improve their
score by at least 60%. I almost reached this goal. Student five was the only student to not score at
least a 75% or improve their score by 60%, however this student did improve their score by 50%,
which makes me extremely happy. This student is more sensitive to high pressure situations and I
think they felt added pressure since he could not have assistance during the assessment.