Portfolio: Analysis of Student Work

The assignment:
Students were asked to evaluate their own names and identify the number of letters in their name. Using classroom resources, such as the white board which has all students’ names listed alphabetically and individual name tags at each desk, the students were to find at least 2 fellow classmates who have shorter names, longer names, and names with equal letter-if possible. Each peers name was to be recorded in the appropriate column.

Student #1:
I chose to analyze this students’ work because I feel like she is a very above-average student, especially in mathematics. I have been observing this student since September of 2007 and was instantly drawn to her keen intellect. She is an out-going student and always eager to help other students at her table finish their work.
I was not surprised to see that this student’s paper had a “Great” noted at the top from my CT and had more than the required number of names in the appropriate columns. In addition, every other students name was spelled correctly.
From my time in this classroom, and observing this student, I know that she probably knew most of her peers’ names without using the classroom resources around her. On a daily basis she writes about friends in her journal-and at this age level she refers to all of her peers as friends.

Student #2:
I chose to analyze this students’ work because she is a below-average student in multiple subject areas as well as her verbal skills. Once a week she attends speech therapy, a pull-out program during mathematics and/or science. This particular student lacks motivation to complete her in-class work. On numerous occasions I have sat with this student and tried to keep her on track during disruptful classroom settings. A majority of these times have resulted in her actually completing her work due to the fact that she was forced to stay on task.
I was most surprised to see that this student displayed some interesting writing samples on her worksheet. Instead of writing a peer’s full name, she only wrote a few letters. In another situation, she wrote a name backwards. However, there were also at least 3 names on her worksheet that she spelled correctly. Most surprising to me was that she put her own name in the longer name column. I have a difficult time understanding her line of inquiry and rationale for completing the task in this manner.

Student #3:
This student is, for lack of a better term, a “social butterfly”. She will try to talk her way out of anything; not in a convincing manner, but rather instead just wasting so much time talking. It is easy for me to assume, after observing this student, that the distractions of talking with other classmates while walking around the class and looking at everyone’s name charts was too much for her to handle. She did not finish the worksheet, nor did she get any answers correct-the first time.
I am unaware of the circumstances, but for some reason this student redid this worksheet on the back of her paper. After she re-did this assignment she put at least one correct name in each column.
When I return to my field placement I will ask my CT about the reasons for which she re-did this assignment.