Research
2009-2010 Funded Project
Targeting Essential Understandings: Mapping Students’ Mathematics Knowledge K-3
Dr. Susan Friel is continuing her work with teachers at Efland Cheeks Elementary School (Orange County Schools). Together, they are working to establish an assessment protocol that involves identifying and assessing students’ knowledge of core topics/essential understandings for number 1-100 and (for 3rd grade) 1-1000. In addition, they will connect their work with a new mathematics curriculum being used in the district to determine how the curriculum supports the development of this content and to identify possible gaps. The overall goal is to determine if the use of these assessments provides information about student learning that will inform teachers’ instructional practices and also inform principals and others about the achievement of students.
Components of this proposal include:
- Making assessments available to teachers: The eleven assessments are valuable tools for assessing/diagnosing student mathematics knowledge. In order to make these interviews easily available to the teachers in Orange County, Dr. Friel proposes to pilot a series of grade level specific professional development experiences that will equip teachers, grades K-3, to conduct the assessment interviews.
- Addressing RTI (Response to Intervention): Efland Cheeks currently has set aside time at each grade level for teachers to do additional intervention work with students who are not performing at grade level. Friel and her assistants will work with teachers to analyze the curriculum for effectiveness, and to make modifications as needed to support students’ learning.
- Research with respect to the transition from 2nd to 3rd grade: A focus of the study is to determine if reliance of these interviews, strategically implemented as both formative assessment andsummative assessment toolsfor learning K-2, provides sufficient evidence to insure a smooth transition from 2nd to 3rd grade. To that end, Friel proposes a research program tied to second grade student performance and the use of three of the nine interviews. In addition to administering these interviews to all 2nd grade students, she proposes to ‘triangulate’ results using two other assessments, with the goal of answering the question about the value of relying on the interviews as assessment tools.
- Teacher use of and reflection about use of the interviews/results: Researchers will observe randomly selected teachers, two at each grade level, administering interviews to one or more students during each of the quarterly assessment periods in order to ascertain how successful they are with conducting the interviews using electronic PDAs and conduct teacher focus groups (K-1 and 2-3) with all teachers in January and again in May to discuss their reactions to administering the interviews and their follow-up use of the reports of results to assist them in planning their instruction. We will be visiting teachers regularly throughout the year and attending selected PLC and other meetings as appropriate as well.
