Morgan Frye, M.Ed.

Master of Science in Education


Wit & Wisdom Assessments



Table of Contents



Introduction
Student Samples of Wit & Wisdom Data
Current Wit & Wisdom Assessment Data
Formative and Summative Assessments
Investing Students in Wit & Wisdom Data
How I Use Wit & Wisdom Data to Drive Instruction
Conclusion




Introduction





What is Wit & Wisdom?



Wit & Wisdom is the primary literacy program that we use at Ingenuity Prep that encompasses comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar into one program. Wit & Wisdom combines lessons that focus around the arts, Kindergarten language skills, and stories relatable to students in order for comprehension skills and vocabulary to develop throughout the year. Wit & Wisdom is currently done in a whole group setting.


Lessons usually consist of a read-aloud that then translates to a specific skill that students work on independently. Wit & Wisdom incorporates writing and discussion, and ensures that students are using different methods of engaging with the material. While Wit & Wisdom is a great program, it is a program that is left up to the teacher to be engaging.



A student discusses their senses and phonetically spells during our module review session. These sessions occur before we address the EOM tasks whole group.



A student completes the end of module (EOM) task for this assessment. Students are given directions in a whole group setting and then asked to complete the assessment on their own.




Student Samples of Wit & Wisdom Assessments





How are students adjusting to W&W?



Wit & Wisdom is a new curriculum for Ingenuity Prep, and students are having some difficulties adjusting to the program, specifically the way that W&W utilizes the same text across multiple lessons. Below are student samples of the independent work after students have read a story multiple times and are beginning to internalize the essential meaning of the text. Some of the work pages that W&W use uses are complicated and dense for students to decode in the short amount of time that we have. Some of the work pages that we use are simplified by the teacher to get to the target skill.



Students are instructed to label the image with the first letter of the object. Some students needed more support with sounding out and identifying the first letters, and others were able to complete the task on their own.



Students are instructed to label the image with the first letter of the object. Students have now began labeling other objects with the first letters- or attempting to identify them from the exercises that we have completed in class.




Current Wit & Wisdom Assessment Data





How are we using W&W Data to drive instruction?



After each lesson, students are expected to go to their desks and complete the individual assignment that is aligned to one of the standards that was covered in the W&W lesson. For the end of Module 1 in W&W, the main standard has been to understand that "our five senses help us learn," and that we can label objects with the first letter of the word. Using these formative assessments daily has allowed me to see which students are struggling with the information and which students have mastered the standards. The students below both demonstrated some mastery of the text, but my response to their data was different and intentional to what each student needs.



Above, a student draws and writes during the independent tasks with Wit & Wisdom. Students attempt to write the words on their own. This student met the expectation that they would write the second word on their own. Many students did not get this far, and this data helped to influence my writing lesson for the next day and W&W data for the following day as well.



Above, a student draws from the book, "The Last Stop on Market Street." Students were able to draw upon their knowledge of the book and of their own communities to draw the "beauty" that they saw in those places. This assessment was geared towards comprehension and the ability to connect student background knowledge (of their own communities) into assessment.



Above, a student draws and orally dictates the picture to the teacher during a review session. The student answering the focusing question, "What did you learn from the two 'My Five Senses' books?"



Above, a student completes the End of Module task for Module 1. This student was able to illustrate the sentence with intentionality and also attempted to spell the words phonetically.




Formative and Summative Assessments





Where does instruction need to go after analyzing data?



The W&W formative assessments that come at the end of every lesson are incredibly beneficial to me as I am able to see which students mastered the skill that was taught on the carpet, and which students are still struggling with the material. This data informs my instruction as I am able to plan for the next day and reteach any standard that was lost on multiple students or pull individual students to address misconceptions and to offer clarification in a one-on-one setting. Below is the End of Module (EOM) task students completed that helped instructors see what students remembered when thinking about our essential question, "how do our senses help us learn?"



Above is a student "Focusing Task Question" (FTQ) that pushed students to draw and write about an animal that they saw on the farm. The student above sounded out the animal's name phonetically and wrote the name of the animal with phonetical spelling.



Above, a student worked to draw a picture of a sheepdog and write the word "dog" above the animal. On the line above, the student attempted to write "a sheepdog on the farm."




Investing students in Wit & Wisdom data





How are we investing students in W&W?



Students are investing in W&W and their literacy data as they see the connection between reading fluently, comprehending the story, and being able to read on their own. My students desperately want to read on their own with texts that are higher level, and there is a self-investment in the work that drives their progress. Out of the box, Wit & Wisdom is also not as engaging as it should be, and there are several things that I must do before each lesson to prepare it in order to ensure that it is engaging enough for students to focus throughout. If students aren't focusing on the material, they will not be prepared for the formative assessment that comes at the end of each lesson.



Above a student puts stickers on their mastery tracker for Wit & Wisdom data. Students love to show where they landed on the scale with their proficiency stickers. These trackers go into student portfolios to show parents at the end of each quarter during parent-teacher conferences.



Above is a picture of another student working with their student-facing tracker. The percentage for each student's assessment is labeled above in the tracker's corner for teachers to see and remember the actual percentage.



Students love to work with different stickers for each module on their trackers. This picture was taken for Module 2 in Wit & Wisdom.



Tracking progress for students, parents, and administrators to see not only allows for there to be transparency in student grades, but gives students something to look forward to when nearing the end of each Wit & Wisdom module.




How I Use Wit & Wisdom Data to Drive Instruction





How are we investing students in W&W?



While student data trackers are great ways to ensure that students are invested in their learning and can track their progress of the standards, teacher-facing trackers ensure that I can see exactly where students are in mastering each standard and what needs to be done if students are not mastering the standards at the pace they need to be. Below are the teacher-facing data trackers for each module. The standards that are covered are broken down into categories of where students performed on assessments and FTQ. The percentage of whole class results allows me to see exactly where students are, and helps me make decisions as to whether or not I should reteach the standard in whole group or reteach the standard to students in small group.



Above is our whole class progress monitoring data tracker that shows the percentage of students in each category, distinguished, proficient, developing, and beginning. Above is the whole class percentages for each standard in Module 1.



Above is our whole class percentage monitoring tracker for Module 2. When the data is presented in a way that shows where the majority of students are in mastering each standard, I am able to use this information to make informed decisions on reteaching the standards.




Conclusion





What is next for Wit & Wisdom?



Wit & Wisdom is a literacy program that incorporates different assessments after every lesson in an effort to see which students have mastered the standard that was addressed that day. The standards change often from lesson to lesson, but are mainly related to comprehension, labeling, and building knowledge. We are almost at the end of the second quarter, and students will continue to work with student-facing trackers to ensure that there is motivation in getting their stickers on the "distinguished" and "proficient" categories.