As an educator, I understand and value the significance of assessments, including formative, summative, and diagnostic. These assessments serve multiple purposes in the evaluation and provide a wealth of data for informed, data-driven decision-making. An exceptional example of this is my field experience in EDUC 324, where a diagnostic assessment as an exit slip adapted to become a pre-assessment proved invaluable. This tool documented the students' progress during my lesson and facilitated grouping students for specialized instruction. I created the diagnostic assessment, the exit slip, all the Canva manipulatives, and my ability to assess my students' interests. This made the lesson meaningful and individualized for them! During my observations, I picked up on learning trends that students struggled to use cardinality in unorganized groups. My objective was clear and precise: "By the end of this lesson, students will be able to use addition and subtraction with small numbers in an unorganized pile grouping to obtain 75% progress toward the target goal of the cardinality set of twenty." In addition to this distinct objective, I did have one IEP, which requires "additional support and reduces his work from counting to 20 to (10)."

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Prior to teaching my lesson in 324, these students in my group had taken AMC Number Sense Assessments to determine their proficiency level. They were grouped with similar prior knowledge levels but had not mastered the skill set; I was placed with a Title I educator in RTI Tier II and Tier III Interventions, which designed this lesson. I knew the IEP before teaching my lesson. We had two students who could not verbally count to twenty. The pre-assessment helped with this knowledge. We had them count from one to twenty before starting the lesson. We took the data we collected and adapted it to put those two students to my right side, where I could work with them separately to achieve the goals of only (10) spiders instead of (20), in which one scored 13, and the other with the IEP achieved 9/10. They had fewer spiders coming from their Oogie Boogie's bodies, and that is ok; their "Oogie Boogie was not as hungry." I remember saying that, even to this day!

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The scores reflect the expected performance. I want students to reach 75% of the target goal of creating a cardinalty group (20). This is calculated by how far they can count before making a mistake when I listen to each student after "Oogie Boogie is full," except one student with the IEP with reduced work (10). Reading the data, this student achieved the goal of 9/10, which is 90%, higher than the expectations of 75%! From the data presented, it is clear that everyone scored a perfect 9/9 on the pre-assessment of counting to 9 with unorganized groups of pumpkins; the writing device created was a differentiation tool for the students, one with the IEP with writing accommodations, but all students found this helpful for number sense. The assessment shows an accumulation of three of four students meeting performance goals for the lesson objectives. This means they can be assessed for going higher to the next level for the next lesson, eventually hitting (32). 

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As we continued my lesson, I would add and subtract spiders; I created this lesson from the students' interests from the seasonal Halloween Disney character Oogie Boogie from A Nightmare Before Christmas. I could effectively assess the students' progress as we go. Each photo displays in my evidence that the students would write the number of spiders. I would ask them to count after Oogie Boogie "swallows two more spiders" or "one spider crawls from his belly!" I can see how well they grasp these concepts and comprehend how to solve these solutions critically. Again, the goal was to give the students an unorganized group, "Oogie Boogie's Body," a whole of spiders, and students would have to use their fingers and pull and place the spiders out to count in groups. We used organized grouping as a solution as examples before testing students' knowledge. Oogie Boogie has twenty unorganized spots for spiders; once he was complete, we wanted students to count the spiders in his body. The critical problem was that the spiders needed to be in more organized groups, and the kindergarteners had to group them and practice to learn to do this.

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My knowledge comes from learned experience. John Dewey's philosophy, experimentalism or instrumentalism, primarily centered on human experience; it viewed ideas as tools for experimenting to improve the human experience through the principle of learning through doing (Pappas, 2023). This is me being an authentic educator with my heart dedicated to reflecting on my work to become a holistic educator who will learn from mistakes and plans to grow. This is my Growth Mindset, and I truly believe in Dr. Carol S. Dweck. How we can learn to fulfill our potential as educators, as she says in her book Mindset, "Growth Mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, strategies, and help from others" (Dweck, 2008, pg. 7, para. 1). I can relate more to how Dr. Dweck explains my learning experience, "Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them?.... This mindset allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times" (Dr. Dweck, 2008, pg. 7, para. 4).

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Today, I understand the importance of assessments and how I used this experience and others to MODEL my education experience. I use formative assessments to see which students need extended time in RTI Tier II or III interventions. Also, our end-of-the-chapter tests are similar to the pre-tests to help categorize student placements for grouping, but again, these groupings change according to the fast past of the new concepts we introduce and how well students keep pace. This data comes from our assessments, test scores, grades, practice sheets, summative assessments from the state testing, and specials like Title I or Resources. It is not just one teacher but a collaboration network between the entire grade and specialists. We all use the accumulated data for the student's betterment of their academic success.