Student Learning
I work with a diverse group of students ranging in ages from 11-16. For the 2024 - 2025 academic year, I teach 4 sections of 10th Grade, 2 sections of Latin Elective, and 1 section of 7th Grade. This means that with class caps of 33/34 students, I will teach a total of 235 individual students over the course of this school year. In order to adapt to the diversity of learners in my classroom, I use a system of pre and post tests to track students' academic progress. I also keep work samples from year-to-year and use them as exemplars for students to study. With my younger students, one-on-one feedback on major projects is a critical aspect of how I assist students in their growth.
Student Data
Tracking
A Case Study
Microeconomics is a complex subject, particularly for 10th-grade students. In order to better help students succeed with the advanced material, I have a system of short pre-unit and post-unit assessments to determine where I need to adapt my lessons to further improve student outcomes. I have selected a handful of students to use as a case study of this methodology.
Unit 1: Microeconomics (Pre-Testing)
Our first unit of the semester is Microeconomics. To the right, is the embedded webpage of the Unit 1
Pre-Test, if you scroll you can see the questions that were used in this data collection.
To protect identities, I have changed the names of my selected case study students to a variety of shapes. There are various populations represented here by our shape students, including students with disabilities and english language learners. Half of the students in this data set are students of color. There are also a variety of performance levels represented here as well. These above/on/below grade level classifications are taken from their MAP data. Due to each student having a copy of their current MAP data, I will omit posting copies here, so students cannot be identified.​
Analyzing and Utilizing Pre-Test Student Data
As we can see from the student data collection, most students do not have ample knowledge about the topic before hand. The student that struggled the most (Rectangle) was one of our ELLs. This student has limited english proficiency, in which case I utilize many graphic organizers and videos with bilingual captions to assist in adaptation.
State Standards and Unit Planning
We can see in this data that the Pre-Test average score was a 1.9/6. The students know that these Pre and Post Tests are ungraded, however they do give students a good insight into the type of assessment criteria they will encounter.
For example, we have two forms of summative assessments for this unit. First, we have a traditional test, where students will have multiple choice, extended response, and graphing questions to assess their knowledge of Microeconomics but more specifically, Supply and Demand.
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We then have a project-based summative assessment known as the Supply and Demand Newspaper Poster Project. I will show exemplars of student success later on this page.
Concurrently with Pre-Testing, me and my coteacher create Unit Plans to map out what we want students to achieve over the course of a unit. This is to ensure substantial gains on New York State Standards as well as the IB Assessment Criteria. The state standards that were tested in this Unit 1 Pre-Test are as follows:​​
Implementing the Unit
In order to allow all students to succeed in meeting these standards and assessment criteria. We have created a unit that is incredibly diverse in terms of activities.
There are a multitude of learning styles accounted for in the unit. For example in Lesson 2, students participate in the 'Who Wants Candy?' scarcity simulation to understand resource allocation. This is great for students who enjoy hypotheticals and inquiry based learning. In Lesson 7 we involve a Socratic Seminar childhood poverty in the United States to explore the costs and benefits of living under capitalism. Along the way, we use traditional notes, videos, graphic organizers, and turn & talks to make sure that students can find a method of knowledge acquisition that works for them.
Exemplars
Exemplar 1
Includes Triangle, Octagon, Rectangle
Exemplar 2
Includes Circle
Exemplar 3
Includes Square, Oval, Hexagon
Exemplar 4
Includes Rhombus, Trapezoid, Parallelogram
Unit 1: Microeconomics (Post-Testing)
As we wrap up the first unit of our semester of Economics, I gave all students the Post-Test in order to see how far they have progressed from their baseline. I am pleased to say the vast majority of students showed a great deal of growth. Students with IEPS worked really hard and had measurable gains from the pre assessment to the post assessment.
​Trapezoid, in particular I was very proud of, over the course of the unit, this student came to office hours and reviewed aspects of Supply and Demand that they didn't understand when we went over it in class. We also did a great deal of modification to align with the students learning needs as written in their IEP.
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Circle is a student who struggles with a variety of different traditional assessments. They often need one-on-one intervention to complete writing related tasks, or tasks that require planning or time management. I am fascinated to see they showed no improvement but they did participate happily in the project and scored a grade that showed overall growth.
Two results I was very surprised by were Hexagon and Square. Both Hexagon and Square were very high performing student in our semester of Government. These student, however, are very open about the fact that they prefer writing heavy subjects. While economics straddles the line between STEM and the humanities, these students will need further intervention by me to continue to succeed in the course. Nevertheless, their work on the group summative assessment demonstrated they are still very knowledgable on the topics we've covered, showing my method of assessing students in a variety of ways is effective at determining true knowledge acquisition.
In the end, 70% of case study students
showed significant growth over the course of the unit
Pre-Test Average: 1.9/6
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Post-Test Average: 3.44/6
Please note: Our student, Octagon, became very ill and was absent during Post-Testing. They are not included in this summary data
Global History Regents Data
I taught Global History during my first year at Bronx Legacy High School. Prior to the 2021 - 2022 school year, the new version of the Global History and Geography II Regents Exam had never been administered due to delays during the COVID pandemic. The students in my population were also disadvantaged by never taking a 9th grade social studies course before due to the school being a brand new high school in the Bronx without a full staff.
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Nevertheless, I covered two years of Global History within one year during the 2021 - 2022 academic year to prepare them to take the June Regents. Out of the 44 total students that I prepped to sit for the Regents exam, 41 of them passed. This is an overall passing rate of 93%.
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This shows a great deal of student learning and growth over the course of a singular academic year.
If you are interested into the population data of this 2021 - 2022 cohort of students who took this Global History Regents assessment; please click the MAP icon above for a document of data