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
As an educator, my primary goal is to help my students develop into well-rounded citizens of the world with the skills necessary to succeed in their desired life path beyond the walls of my classroom. One of the primary tools I use to foster this development is the implementation of assessments and activities that ensure students are making dramatic academic gains, which will act as the ultimate door opener for the level of rigor necessary to be prepared for college and a career in the 21st century. I use both quantitative and qualitative measures to track this growth. Data obtained from these measures can also be used to inform instruction and design scaffolding and additional support when necessary.
My classes are designed to provide students with opportunities to practice their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in authentic ways to push them closer to English language fluency. To accomplish this task, I strive to build students' level of academic language proficiency to ensure they have the language necessary to express their ideas and opinions. At the beginning of each section of my class, students take a pre-assessment, which is divided into the core content domains of grammar, vocabulary, listening, and reading. This quantitative data is then used to tailor instruction to the needs of the specific students in the class. At the end of the section, students take a post-test, which can be compared to the pre-test to track student growth.
Furthermore, at the start of each unit, students are given a writing prompt asking their opinions about a real-world problem or social issue that links to our upcoming unit theme. Students are given the same prompt at the end of the unit with the additional task of including the target language, vocabulary, and grammar structures from the unit while expressing their ideas and opinions. This qualitative measure of growth can be analyzed to ensure students are making dramatic academic gains in regards to their ability in written English and in their ability to express their original thoughts and opinions concisely and intelligently.
Please click on the two images below to see how I utilize both quantitative and qualitative measures to track the academic gains made by my students. The included samples demonstrate that my students are making dramatic gains of rigorous and measurable academic growth, which will ensure they are prepared for the level of rigor necessary for success in college and a career in the 21st century.
Quantitative
Qualitative
Conclusion
Truly transformational teachers ensure that dramatic academic gains and growth in content knowledge are one of the cornerstones of their instruction. This growth needs to be measurable and rigorous and can act as the ultimate door opener to set students up for maximum levels of success in college and a career in the 21stcentury. It is crucial to use both quantitative and qualitative measures to track this growth and to use the data obtained to inform instruction and tailor scaffolding and additional support to the needs of individual students so that all learners can succeed. In my classroom, I use multiple sources of data—such as quantitative assessments which track growth in proficiency for grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading as well as qualitative writing tasks to address real-world problems and social issues—to plan rigorous learning activities, which support the academic needs and development of my specific students. Through the results shown in the pages linked above, it is evident that my students were able to experience dramatic levels of academic growth in my class, and can use the knowledge gained in their lives beyond my classroom walls to act as the ultimate door opener for success.