Courtney Mulcahy
From TeacherWiki
Contents |
Who am I
Courtney Mulcahy has been using ASSISTments since 2009. Her students do something on ASSISTments every night.
School
Oak Middle School Shrewsbury MA
Text Books I use
CMP2
My ASSISTment plan, organized by units
Go to this page Outline of assignments on ASSISTments for 8th grade at Oak Middle School.
Mastery Learning
I assign a Mastery Learning Problem Set each night (Monday-Thursday). My intent is to review "old" skills that students are expected to know, but are not neccesarily addressed in our curriculum. For example, one week may focus on fractions, with one night adding, the next subtracting...
Students enjoy the Mastery Learning becasue they are quick assignments - one and done! It is not really "extra" work because many students master the topic with ease. The only challenge I face is keeping track of students who do not master the skill on the first night and get locked out. Some students take initative and go back and will master the skill without being assigned the following night. However, many of my students (especially inclusion classes)lack the initiative and will only complete an assignment if it is assigned. At this point, I have some students who have a very long list on unmastered skills. On top of all that is going on, unfortuantly tracking students progress with these assignments gets put on my back burner.
Homework
CMP assignments are completed on a regualr basis by my honors students. They enjoy the instant feedback, get fired up when they get one wrong - they come in to me first thing in the morning insisting that Assistment is wrong and then we work out the probelm together and they discover their mistake. It is a great learning experience. We are still experiencing some difficulties on inputting answers, because Assistment expects very specific responses. Additionally, it sets me up for the day - I know exactly which problems I need to go over/review and which we are comfortable with.
My inclusion classes are not great about entering their nightly assignments. Many of them struggle with the "extra step" of inputting; it is tough enough to get some of them to complete the work itself. At this point, I am not putting up the fight of making them input their answers.
Students Monitoring Their Own Progress
At the begining of a unit, I pass out an Assistment Tracking Log which requires students to view their Item Report after each assignment. They record their scores* and have a column to comment on strengths/weaknesses/questions from the assignment. It is great to reflect on at the end of the unit and highlights growth and progress. It also identifies areas of weakness and reminds students that this is an area to address (freshen-up on) before the assessment.
-Scores are percentages which counted ungraded ORQ wrong - and lowered their percentile score (but I think this is fixed now).
February 6, 2010
During the rest of the year I plan to continue to assign CMP HW to my Honors Classes for all units (except Kalidescopes). I will re-try assigning CMP HW to my Regular classes for the Growing, Growing, Growing unit as there will be tutoring built for these assignments as part of a study. All classes will complete Investigation Reviews for all remaining units. All classes will continue to complete a Mastery Learning assignment nightly. I will continue to use peer critiques for ORQs to strengthen their knowledge of what makes a good response. I will also try to increase communication with parents through the parent notification system.
These are the routines I have found useful:
- a better tracking method of Mastery Learning. Since I assign ML nightly, I had a tendancy to fall behind tracking students who did not attempt/did not master the assignment. Sicen we returned from break in January, I have come up with a new tracking method which seems to be working. Every morning, I write a list of students on the board who did not attempt/master. The only way their name comes off the baord is if they show me on a laptop that their assignment list says "Complete." If on Friday their name is still on the baord, they have to attend Saturday School. This has been a big motivator for them to take initiavite and go back and get the work completed. It has also increased their attendance at extra help (although they should be using the hints). Either way, it is working.
This is a routine that sounds good and I want to try
My plans for Assistment in 2010-11
- Mastery Learning
- CMP HW
- MCAS Prep
- Essay Grading - ORQ Critiques
- Parent Notification
Success Story
Through the use of parent notification, one of my students was struggling and thanks to the increased communication with his mother, the students effort, attitude and results improved.
