Academic Vocabulary Assessments

Academic Vocabulary Assessments

by Tony Lovell

References

Hoffmann, Michelle. (1996). HotChalk Lesson Plans. "A lesson on

presidential campaigns". Retrieved from http://lessonplanspage.com/sscoveringcampaign-htm/

Simplifying Radicals. (2012). Simplify With Me. "Bazinga". Retrieved from

http://simplifyingradicals2.blogspot.com/2012/05/bazinga.html

Wessling, Sarah Brown. (2015). Teaching Channel. "The Stoplight Method:

An End-of- Lesson Assessment. Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/daily-lesson-assessment

Conclusion:

As the students approach the key terms in various ways, the knowledge and understanding of the definitions, context in which the words can be used, and the purpose of the terms should grow.

ELL and Special Needs students should be provided with modifications as necessary, but the overall use of the suggested academic review options should not prove to be an issue. The use of formative and summative assessments will hopefully provide the student with an effective template to demonstrate knowledge and mastery of the concepts and terms.

This should also provide the educator with the necessary information to determine the effective of the lesson plan and curriculum, while also helping the teacher to determine what additional assistance, if any, is needed and where that additional assistance should be applied.

Academic Review Idea #3

The last suggestion for academic review is to have the students create a graphic organizer to establish differences and similarities in these words.

Namely, the terms "magazine" and "newspaper" will have the most similarities, but the students should be tasked with determining how the terms fit together, in what ways they can be used, and if there are any other similarities or differences between the two. One way to achieve this is a venn diagram, but the suggestion for a formative assessment is to create a flow chart that shows how each term works with another.

Formative Assessment: Flow Chart

The students will insert each word into a flow chart. The words will appear in individual circles with an arrow pointing from one word to another to show in what sequence the words work.

Within each circle, the students will state how the words work together.

EX:

Evolution into Summative Assessment:

Once the flow chart has been created, the assessment evolves into a Summative Assessment.

The student then takes the information in the flow chart and writes a story that uses that information with the proper context. The essay should use the key terms chosen for the flow chart, but the essay does not have to be on an actual historical candidate.

The teacher will look for proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling, along with the proper use of context and key terms.

Academic Review Idea #2

Another way to gauge student understanding of the vocabulary words is to have the students tell you.

While having a conversation with each student can be too time-consuming for a general classroom day, the use of Exit Slips allows the teacher to gauge student understanding in just a few sentences.

The following formative assessment uses these slips to accomplish two things:

• The student should follow a prompt correctly;
• The student should explain what they understand, considered, or what stopped their learning.

Formative Assessment: Stoplight Slips

This formative assessment comes to us from Sarah Brown Wessling on The Teaching Channel.

The Premise:

• Students are tasked with responding to the following prompt:
• "Using a sticky note, write your name at the top. Then, choose one key term from this week's lesson. Write the word in the top right corner, then use that term in a sentence with the proper context. Lastly, tell me either: what you learned, what you needed to consider, or what stopped your learning with this key term.

As the students leave, they will place their sticky note on one of three colored circles (that resemble a stoplight):

• Green Circle: for responses that explain what the students learned;
• Yellow Circle: for responses that explain what the students had to consider in order to respond; they're unsure their answers are correct;
• Red Circle: for responses where the student believes they do not understand a specific word because it was either confusing or their learning just stopped for some reason.

How To Use this as a Formative Assessment:

This formative assessment should be provided after the lesson has concluded for the day.

Once all students have left the classroom, placing their sticky note on the "stoplight", the teacher should collect the responses and immediately review them. As the teacher reviews each response, he/she should document:

1) Whether students answer correctly;

2) Whether students believe their understanding is solid or shaky;

3) Whether the teacher agrees with the student's self-reflection and why.

Once all responses have been reviewed, the teacher can plan to review, if necessary, specific words or uses the following day. The teacher may even decide to sit with specific students to discuss why they believe their learning stopped or what exactly they're having trouble with in regards to the vocabulary terms.

Academic Review Idea #1

One way to ingrain the meaning and usefulness of key terms from a lesson into our students is to approach these words in different ways. One such way is to have the students think on their feet--to have the students come up with a proper response to a prompt. The prompts can be the definition to which the student will have to supply the vocabulary term, or vice versa. The prompt can also be to use the word in a sentence correctly without providing the definition.

An excellent formative assessment for this is the game "Bazinga!"

Formative Assessment: Bazinga!

This formative assessment comes to us from various places, but mainly Pintrest.

The Premise:

The Setup:

This is a review game, and it can be applied to most any subject/topic.

For this lesson, we'll use it as a vocabulary assessment during after the lesson has been started.

Students are divided into teams, and receive points for correctly answered questions/prompts.

Students will:

• be given a definition and must state and spell the correct word;
• be given a word and must correctly spell and define it;
• be asked to use a given word in a sentence with proper context for the lesson;
• be asked to provide a synonym or antonym for a given word;
• be asked how the word fits into what they're learning, and how they can use it outside of the current lesson.

There are nine pockets, each with 3 cards in them. Here is the breakdown of the cards:

Cards about points:

- (3) Erase one1 point from all other teams.

- (3) Double your score.

- (3) Take away two points from one other random team and give them to your team.

- (6) Add two points to your score.

- (3) Erase two points from one other random team.

Action Cards:

- (2) Randomly switch one player from each of the other teams.

- (2) Randomly have a player from the winning team go to the losing team.

- (2) The team with the least points must collectively do 10 pushups.

- (2) The team with the most points must collectively do 10 pushups.

The Bazinga Card: Take Half of Every Team's Score.

(Simplifying Radicals, 2012).

How To Use this as a Formative Assessment:

As the teacher provides the question or prompt to the students, the students will take turns responding. Each student should have the opportunity to answer at least twice.

The points are for fun and to get the students interested in the information. The reward could be anything the teacher sees fit. The purpose of this assessment, though, is to gauge how well the students understand the material.

As questions are answered correctly, the teacher will document. For those answered incorrectly, the teacher should make a note about what exactly was missed: was it the word itself? The definition? The proper context in which to use one of the terms?

Depending on what portion of the term or its usage was missed, additional review may be necessary. This is why this game is used after the lesson has begun, but before the class goes too far into activities. The terms will be used throughout the lesson, and this provides a great way to see how well the information has been retained before progressing further.

(Simplifying Radicals, 2012).

Overview

12 Key Vocabulary Terms

In the 4th Grade Social Studies lesson "A lesson on presidential campaigns," students are tasked with creating a printed work--newspaper, magazine, etc.--that covers an election, past or present (Hofmann, 1996). According to the lesson plan, "Students will be able to follow assigned/chosen areas of the upcoming political election, focusing upon the major candidates and issues. They will compile two editions of a class campaign trail newspaper" (Hofmann, 1996).

Throughout the lesson, students will use specific, grade-appropriate key terms, or vocabulary words.

This presentation will review 3 specific ways to effectively review academic vocabulary words for the lesson.

• Candidate – (n.) a person who is trying to be elected
• Campaign – (n.) a connected series of operations designed to bring about a particular result
• Election – (n.) the act or process of choosing someone for a public office by voting
• Editorial – (n.) an essay in a newspaper or magazine that gives the opinions of its editors or publishers.
• Magazine – (n.) a type of thin book that contains stories, essays, pictures, etc., and that is usually published every week or month.
• Coverage – (n.) the activity of reporting about an event or subject in newspaper, on television news programs, etc.
• Edit – (v.) to prepare (something written) to be published or used; to make changes, correct mistakes, etc.
• Feature – (n.) an interesting or important part, quality, ability, etc.
• Issue (1) – (n.) the version of a newspaper, magazine, etc. that is published at a particular time.
• Issue (2) – (n.) something that people are talking about; an important subject or topic.
• Newspaper – (n.) a paper that is printed and distributed usually daily or weekly and that contains news, articles of opinion, features, and advertising
• Article – (n.) a piece of writing about a particular subject that is included in a magazine, newspaper, etc.