Poverty and Assessment Data

EDUC 350

This week in class was a little overwhelming. On Monday our professor locked us out of the classroom and gave us a small piece of paper that pretty much told us if we were rich or poor. I turned out to be poor like the majority of my classmates. Our professor gave us an assignment which was to make a poster on poverty and education but there was a twist, we could only use the materials our groups had. Since we were poor my group only had an envelop, 2 markers, paperclip and a couple pieces of paper with information on poverty and education. The rich group had actual poster boards, a bucket of markers, feathers, etc... but what hit me hard was that they had snacks. While working on the poster I noticed that we would come up with good ideas for the poster but since we did not have the resources available we had to just settle. It really limited our potential and it was very frustrating to see the other group doing so well and then look at our miniature very colorless poster in disappointment. That taught us that when students do not have food in their bellies and school supplies and of course lots of love, they won't be focused on learning. Dr. Clark kept mentioning Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how you have to satisfy each level before you can move on to next & I finally realized the importance of that. If a child is hungry they will not be thinking about our solar system they will be thinking about how bad they want a hamburger. Once you meet those basic needs the focus will be turned into the actual lesson. On Wednesday in class we watched a video about a mother and her sons and how they lived in poverty. The young man had goals for himself and seemed like he might accomplish them. Once we saw what became of them it turned out that he did not even finish school and is also living in poverty. We learned that poverty is something that can be generational. 

The things we have learned in class this week related to NCTCS 1d which states that "teachers advocate for school and students". We as teachers have to look at our students and be their voice. If we think that our school can possibly do something to help a child in serious poverty we need to advocate and explain the situation. I will use what I learned this week in my future classroom because I need to understand that I will have students who do not have much, students whose only meal will be during school hours. I need to be sensitive about this topic and figure out ways in which I can help those students succeed. For my outside research I read an article about how poverty affects education: http://www.educationdive.com/news/measuring-the-impact-of-poverty-in-education/423321/

EDUC 410

In class this week we looked at some data from a math test taken by 4th graders. When I opened that file I was completely lost I had no idea what it was until I looked more into it and saw that they were test scores from a pretest and a post test. The teacher was very organized with the data she had every question and what standard it came from, it was very amazing actually. I learned that we should gather data from our students so we can compare the growth. It is a good thing to have data from the year just in case a parent or administrator wants to see the improvement of a certain student. We learned that by assessing our students it will help us see what we have to review and see the things our students have mastered. This relates back to the NCTCS 5a which states that "Teachers analyse student learning".

I will use this in my future classroom to ensure my students are learning what they need to learn and using data collected from assessments to review my teaching as well as student growth. This week has been an emotional roller coaster from talking about poverty and how having no money can already set some students up for failure to learning about data and how it is necessary to know that your students are actually learning the material.