One of the hardest things to do as a teacher is to incorporate effective

assessments. I have always felt that school would be best if teachers could just
teach and students could just learn. My husband was just telling me about these
schools in Italy that came to fame when he was in college. They were called Reggio
Emilio Schools, I believe it was the town that the schools were in. They had the
school set up as that the students lead the research. They based a lot on
environmental learning and usually it was based on one big task like making a
butterfly garden. The task was all encompassing. They had to use geometry to find
the area of the garden, algebra to calculate area depth of mulch, reading to write
scientific name tags for plants, etc. They never gave formal assessments in the
school but had to take the standardized test for Italy. All the students excelled.
There were some problems that my husband mentioned such as he believed only
higher achieving students could attend since many European countries track their
students. This would be my ideal school, learning without the pressure of formal
tests and grades. I am learning to find middle ground for my feelings on
assessments and testing. In this paper I will discuss the methods of giving students
positive feedback, emphasizing the activities in my environmental science lesson.
The activities were a river picture with descriptive paragraph, in class discussion
and activity about water pollution, and a final opinion essay.
I would like to discuss some ways that I like to give my students positive
feedback and help them learn. I like to try to get my special education students to
feel pride in his or her ability rather than have negative feelings. I use sticker charts
to give students positive feedback. The science lesson plan would eventually lead to
a test. The students get to set the score that they want to achieve, and even ones
who struggle the most with test usually choose 90% or above. I then give them a

sticker for a chart when they achieve their goal. This seems trivial but since the
student is setting their goal they are taking ownership for academic performance.
They receive a big reward when they get a certain number of stickers. I have a free
homework pass, use my chair for a day pass, and gift cards. My ultimate goal is to
have students feel rewarded intrinsically but I have encountered some extreme
cases when this reward system kept the student on track. I firmly believe that we
must keep things in perspective. If the chart motivates students to achieve at the
highest level possible in elementary/middle school, they may become positive about
school and lead to self-motivation when they get to secondary school.
I truly love rubrics. I use rubrics extensively and think that are fantastic
teaching tools. The number one thing that I like about rubrics is the clarity of
expectations. This is one of the biggest problems that special education students
have, they are not sure what is expected from them. Many have no idea what to do
to get an A grade. I often use an individual rubric for each of students. The rubric
goals are related to the students IEP or to other things they need to work on. The
rubric gives a clear number value for each criteria that the needs to be reached. It
allows students to see exactly what needs to be done to get a 3 or 4. Rubrics are
worded in a positive way and they keep the student from feeling overwhelmed. I
would definitely use the rubric for both the picture in the environmental lesson plan
and the final paper. I think that papers in general are good assessments since they
require the students to explain their thinking. This is hard for special education
students but I also use verbal explanations for showing their understanding. I go
through the paper and rubric with students and this allows for them to fully
understand what they did well and what they could do better at.

I have my students keep track of their own scores and chart their progress.
This is a progress chart and I have them use line graph to show their scores. I really
like to use this when I give pretests or have multiple quizzes throughout one unit.
They can see how they start low with the score of the pretest. I make sure that they
understand the pretest is a starting point. The line graph allows students to see
their scores increasing. It seems to make them gain positive and excited.
When working with students I always give many compliments and
constructive criticism. I have found a positive comment goes a long way to helping
students gain confidence and strive to work harder. I truly want every student just
to try their best. I make sure that I am always have an open door so students who
have questions can ask. I try to teach students many study skills and strategies for
self-assessment. One of my favorites is what I call, Pete and Repeat. When
students are reading I have students stop at the bottom of the page, close his or her
book and try to repeat what they read by writing it down in a journal or sometimes
by telling a partner. It is perfectly fine if they cant recall any information but I ask
the students to read the material over. This is a stop and check comprehension
method. It causes some frustration if the students have to read the material a third
time but I often adapt the amount of reading my students have to do. I have
condensed paragraphs for some textbooks which give the most important
information without the wordy extras. I also used abbreviated novels as an
adaptation. I like to read parts of A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, when I
am studying environmental protection. There are condensed text versions which
allow the student to use the stop and check method without getting upset.
I use a self-evaluation sheet for large projects and I also have students do a
weekly set of goals and then assess themselves on these goals. This is a great way

for students to keep things in perspective. Fridays they look back over the week and
see what they did well and also what they need to do better. I help the students set
the goals and they would include things like attending and discussing the pollution
of the river. If the student had behavior issues in the IEP they may have those goals
so the student would have had to follow along during the polluting the river activity.
I have found that most assessment methods can be used for different classes
and different lessons but I try my best to find the most effective assessment
method of each individual student. Some students excel at certain types of tests. I
try to use a variety of them and fit tailor them to each students strengths. I think
some students like prefer tests on the computer and some like essay tests, and
some are great at remembering vocabulary. This is a great way to cater to his or her
strengths. I also make sure to provide fast and effective feedback. I like to keep it as
simple as I can and allow the students to take ownership in their grades and
assessment. It seems that by using a combination of methods and by making sure
students are positive about their academic performance they will strive to succeed.