Nevada Closing the Achievement Gap Through Standards-Based
Curriculum
SESSION 5
Course: Closing the Achievement Gap: Assessing, Analyzing
Student Reading Skills
Instructor: TUN/KDS
Email:
Telephone:
Materials: Internet Connection, printer
Course: Closing the Achievement Gap: Assessing, Analyzing Student Reading Skills
Course Start Dates:
Location: Touro University Nevada
Prerequisites: Bachelor Degree
Number of credits: 3
Course Overview
This course will focus on the constraints that students from poverty bring with
them and strategies that teachers can use to overcome those constraints. Students will be
shown examples of an approach to lesson development which was designed after by
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. In that light, the instructor stresses the
importance of differentiating instructional approaches. She also gives considerable
attention to project based learning and to ways that a project based approach can integrate
each of the intelligences that Gardner identified, aiding in teaching declarative knowledge
and in teaching processes and skills.
Students will be reminded of the importance of constructing lesson plans on the
principles of backward design—starting with the end in mind—and stresses the
importance of providing supports for learning both declarative and procedural
knowledge. The instructor will examine two lesson plans—one at the secondary level and
the other at the elementary level. She considers the ways that each plan helps students
construct meaning, see patterns, make connections, and organize the knowledge
presented in the lesson. Additionally, she considers how each lesson plan contributes to
students’ development of procedural knowledge. In that light, she considers how each
helps students build mental models and give shape to those models and how each
contributes to students reaching automaticity with the skills being taught in the lesson.
Students will be shown how reciprocal teaching strategies and assessment tools
can be used to help students improve their reading skill and concludes by offering a set of
general guidelines that teachers can use to evaluate their own approaches to reading
instruction. The instructor stresses the importance of providing clear rules and
expectations for students. She considers how using rubrics can be effective strategy for
helping students prepare for tests. Additionally, she considers how to design effective
project based tasks and strategies that can be used to help students master both
declarative and procedural knowledge. The course concludes by considering the use of
expert groups and provides concrete, subject specific examples of how this technique can
be used. It’s important, she suggests, for students to set clear goals for their learning,
develop plans to help themselves reach those goals, and to assess their progress towards
achieving their goals.
Learner Outcomes:
The student will be able to:
 Identify and use reciprocal teaching strategies.
 Develop and implement rubrics to assess student learning.
 Design lesson plans and teach required subjects using Howard Gardner’s theory
of Multiple Intelligences
 Construct lesson plans using the BAM (Backwards Assessment Model) theory.
 Implement mental models in their instructional plan.
 Master and apply declarative and procedural knowledge.
Instructor:
Online Self-Paced Instruction
Knowledge Delivery Systems maintains a online platform that automatically grades their
pre and post assessments, monitors their participation in the lecture, and awards them
credit when they complete the program. KDS also employs a team of educators to
monitor the progress and quality of work students provide.
Face-to-Face live instruction
Touro Faculty Member
Weekly Online Lecture Assignments:
Week 1

Putting It All Together – Donna Walker Tileston

Giving Meaning to Learning – Donna Walker Tileston
Week 2

Teaching The Diverse Brain to Read and Understand – Donna Walker Tileston

Closing the Gap in Achievement – Donna Walker Tileston
Week 3

Leading Kids to Self-Assess – Donna Walker Tileston

Building Rubrics for Formative and Summative Assessments – Donna Walker
Tileston
Week 4

Putting It All Together – Donna Walker Tileston

The Emotion of Testing – Donna Walker Tileston
Discussion Board:
Students must submit one unique comment each week that must be at least 3 sentences in
length.
Students must submit one reply to a fellow classmate’s comment that must be at least 2
sentences in length.
Methods of instruction:
Credit
Methods of instruction will include:
 8 individual sections (20 hours)
 8 pre assessments
 8 graded post assessments
 8 Video Lectures
 Polling questions
 8, 60-100 pages Study guides
 Handouts
 Midterm Project
 Final Project
Percentage of Course
5%
10%
30%
part of videos
Materials Included
part of videos
20%
25%
Grading criteria/system and evaluation activities:
A course administrator will be reviewing students’ answers and providing
feedback. Students will be evaluated on their creativity and ability to
incorporate techniques from the lecture into the discussion board, research
papers, examples and lesson plans.
University Grading Criteria
Grade
Equivalent
97-100%
93-96%
90-92%
87-89%
83-86%
80-82%
77-79%
73-76%
70-72%
69% or below
A+
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CU
Attendance/Participation
Students will be expected to complete assignments as stated in the syllabus.
Due dates of major assignments, projects, and examinations:
Midterm Due Dates: Due 15 days into the Course
Final Due Dates: Due on the last day of class
Discussion Board Interaction: One unique comment and one response to a student’s
comment by Sunday of each week.
Text and/or required reading list:
Text: (Included in the price of the program)

Putting It All Together

Giving Meaning to Learning

Teaching The Diverse Brain to Read and Understand

Closing the Gap in Achievement

Leading Kids to Self-Assess

Building Rubrics for Formative and Summative Assessments

Putting It All Together

The Emotion of Testing
Handouts: (Included in Program)
Web readings:
1. Children’s Self-Assessment http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/pubs/katzsym/liebovich.html
2. Formative Assessment - http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/31/35661078.pdf
3. Teaching Self-Assessmenthttp://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/resources/acl/e1.html
Cumulative Class Project:
Activity: Reflective Journal
Potential Total Points:
100 Points
The purpose of this activity is to reflect on issues and topics of interest that impact
Diversity in the development of curricular practices and assessment. For this purpose you
will need to on a weekly basis identify at least one topic or issue that in your opinion are
relevant towards developing a diverse school curricular and assessment practices.
For each issue or topics selected include a commentary describing: reasons
for your selection, ways in which it impacts learners, teachers, and curricular policies. Be
sure to include the documentation source for each of the issues selected as per the KDS
video presentations.
Submit a summative reflection describing the two main issues and topics that in your
consideration are of greatest importance.
Each Weekly Reflection should be 1-2 pages in length
The Summative Reflection should be 3-4 pages in length
Scoring Criteria for Assignment
Appropriately selects the weekly issues and includes reflections for each issue and
includes the
source for each issue (8 issues at 7.5 points each = 60):
60
points
Includes an summative reflection
Use of APA guidelines
30 points
10 points
Potential Total Points:
100 points
Final Project
Cumulative Project: part 5
Standard 5: Analysis of Student Learning
The teacher uses assessment data to profile student learning and
communicate information about student progress and achievement.
 Presentation is easy to understand and contains no errors of representation.
 Analysis if fully aligned with learning goals and provides a comprehensive
profile of student learning for the whole class, subgroups, and individuals.
 Interpretation is meaningful, and appropriate conclusions are drawn from the
data.
 Analysis of student learning includes evidence of the impact on student learning
in terms of number of students who achieved and made progress toward each
learning goal.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Required Components of the Teacher Work Sample
Analysis of student learning
The teacher must provide a narrative summary of student learning that occurred as a
result of the instructional sequence. He/she should provide rubrics, graphs or charts
that profile student performance on a pre-assessment and post-assessment used in the
instructional sequence (6-8 pgs).
Include the following:







Give an overview of the assessments used and include copies of rubrics,
charts and/graphs.
How would you characterize the overall success of this instructional
sequence?
To what extent did students meet the learning goals/objectives of this unit?
Did students enjoy the methods and activities you chose to include in this
instructional sequence? How do you know?
To what extent did the lesson meet the specific language and/or special
learning needs of students?
How did understanding students’ learning styles and emotional intelligence
help you to create and implement this instructional sequence?
What did you learn from including student self-assessment?