Multi Grade-Report

ASSESSING
LEARNING AND
TEACHING
PERFORMANCE
IN MULTI-
GRADE CLASSES
• The term ‘multigrade teaching’ generally refers
to a teaching situation where a single teacher
has to take responsibility for teaching pupils
across more than one curriculum grade within a
timetabled period. Schools with multigrade
classes are referred to as multigrade schools.
• In most of the world’s education systems,
formal education is expected to be imparted in a
monograde teaching environment, where one
teacher is responsible for a single curriculum
grade within a timetabled period.
As a teacher in assessing of your teaching is that
you should be aware of the instructions that you
are giving with your student. Does it still address
the needs of the students? Does it match their
learning style? How about the prior knowledge,
have you considered it? These questions would
help you in being an effective multigrade
practitioner.
EFFECTS ON STUDENT
PERFORMANCE
• Many teachers, administrators, and
parents continue to wonder whether
or not multigrade organization has
negative effects on student
performance. Research evidence
indicates that being a student in a
multigrade classroom does not
negatively affect academic
performance, social relationships, or
attitudes.
Miller (1990) reviewed 13 experimental studies
assessing academic achievement in single-grade
and multigrade classrooms and found there to
be no significant differences between them.
The data clearly support the multigrade
classroom as a viable and equally effective
organizational alternative to single-grade
instruction.
The limited evidence suggests there may be
significant differences depending on subject or
grade level. Primarily, these studies reflect the
complex and variable nature of school life.
Moreover, there are not enough such studies
to make safe generalizations about which
subjects or grade levels are best for
multigrade instruction.
• When it comes to student affect, however, the case for
multigrade organization appears much stronger. Of the 21
separate measures used to assess student affect in the
studies reviewed, 81 percent favored the multigrade
classroom (Miller, 1990).
• If this is the case, why then do we not have more schools
organized into multigrade classrooms? One response is that
history and convention dictate the prevalence of graded
classrooms. However, there is a related, but more
compelling, answer to be found in the classrooms themselves
and in information drawn from classroom practitioners.
How to Assess Students’ Learning and
Performance ?
Learning takes place in students’ heads where it is invisible to others. This means that learning
must be assessed through performance: what students can do with their learning. Assessing
students’ performance can involve assessments that are formal or informal, high- or low-stakes,
anonymous or public, individual or collective.
Here we provide suggestions and strategies for assessing student learning and performance as
well as ways to clarify your expectations and performance criteria to students.
• Creating assignments
• Creating exams
• Using classroom assessment techniques
• Using concept maps
• Using concept tests
• Assessing group work
• Creating and using rubrics
Six key instructional dimensions affecting successful multigrade teaching
Six key instructional dimensions affecting successful multigrade teaching have been
identified from multigrade classroom research (Miller, 1991). Note that each of
these points has some bearing on the related issues of independence and
interdependence. It is important to cultivate among students the habits of
responsibility for their own learning, but also their willingness to help one another
learn.
Classroom organization: Instructional resources and the physical

environment to facilitate learning.
Management and discipline: Classroom schedules and routines that promote
clear, predictable instructional patterns, especially those that enhance
student responsibility for their own learning.
 Instructional organization and curriculum: Instructional strategies and routines
for a maximum of cooperative and self-directed student learning based on
diagnosed student needs. Also includes the effective use of time.
 Instructional delivery and grouping: Methods that improve the quality of
instruction, including strategies for organizing group learning activities across
and within grade levels.
 Self-directed learning: Students' skills and strategies for a high level of
independence and efficiency in learning individually or in combination with other
students.
 Peer tutoring: Classroom routines and students' skills in serving as "teachers" to
other students within and across differing grade levels.
• Students learn how to help one another and
themselves. At an early age, students are expected to
develop independence. The effective multigrade
teacher establishes a climate to promote and develop
this independence. For example, when young students
enter the classroom for the first time, they receive
help and guidance not only from the teacher, but from
older students. In this way, they also learn that the
teacher is not the only source of knowledge.
• Instructional grouping practices also play an important
role in a good multigrade classroom. The teacher
emphasizes the similarities among the different
grades and teaches to them, thus conserving valuable
teacher time. For example, whole-class (cross-grade)
instruction is often used since the teacher can have
contact with more students. However, whole-class
instruction in the effective multigrade classroom
differs from what one generally finds in a single-grade
class.
• In the multigrade classroom, more time must be
spent in organizing and planning for instruction.
Extra materials and strategies must be developed so
that students will be meaningfully engaged. This
additional coordination lets the teacher meet with
small groups or individuals, while other work
continues.
• Since the teacher cannot be everywhere or with
each student simultaneously, the teacher shares
instructional responsibilities with students. A
context of clear rules and routines makes such
shared responsibility productive. Students know
what the teacher expects. They know what
assignments to work on, when they are due, how to
get them graded, how to get extra help, and where
to turn assignments in.
A Five-Point definition of Teacher Effectiveness
 Effective teachers have high expectations for all students and help students learn, as
measured by value-added or other test-based growth measures, or by alternative
measures.
 Effective teachers contribute to positive academic, attitudinal, and social outcomes
for students such as regular attendance, on-time promotion to the next grade, on-time
graduation, self-efficacy, and cooperative behavior.
 Effective teacher use diverse resources to plan and structure engaging learning
opportunities; monitor students formatively, adapting instruction as needed; and
evaluate learning using multiple sources of evidence.
 Effective teachers contribute to the development of classrooms and schools that
value diversity and civic mindedness.
 Effective teachers collaborate with other teachers, administrators, parents and
education professionals to ensure students success, particularly the success of
students with special needs and those at high risk of failure
Methods of Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness
VALUE-ADDED MODELS
Value-Added models provide a summary score of the contribution of various factors towards growth in
students achievement. Value-Added models are relatively new measure of teacher effectiveness, and
supporters of their use.
CLASSROOM OBSEVATIONS
Classroom observation are the most common form of teacher evaluation and vary widely in how they are
conducted and what they evaluate. Observation can be created by the district or purchased as a
product. They can be conducted by a school administrator or an outside evaluator. They can measure
general teaching practices or subject-specific techniques.
PRINCIPAL EVALUATION
One of the most common form of evaluation is principal or vice-principal classroom evaluation. In this
subsection, principal evaluation is considered a special case of classroom observation , and some of its
distinct issues are detailed.
ANALYSIS OF CLASSROOM ARTIFACTS
Another that has been introduce to the area of teacher evaluation is the
analysis of classroom artifacts. This method considers lesson plans, teacher
assignments, assessment, scoring rubrics , student works and other artifact. The
idea is that by analyzing classroom artifacts, evaluators can glean a better of
how a teacher creates learning opportunities for day-to-day basis.
PORTFOLIOS
Portfolios are a collection of material compiled by teachers to exhibit evidence
of their teaching practices , school activities, and student progress. They may
contain exemplary work as well as evidence that a teacher is able to reflect on a
lesson plan, identify problem in the lesson, make appropriate modification to plan
future lesson.
SELF-REPORT OF PRACTICE
Teacher self-report measures ask teachers to report on what they are doing in
the classroom and may take the form of surveys, instructional logs, or
interviews. Like observations, self-report may focus on broad and overarching
aspect of teaching that are thought to be important in all context, or may the
focus on specific subject matter, content areas, grade levels, or techniques.
STUDENT EVALUATION
Student evaluations most often come in the form of a questionnaire that ask
students to rate teachers on a Likert type scale. Students may assess various
aspects of teacher, from course content to specific teaching practices and
behavior.
Why does your school need to adopt multigrade
teaching?
The following is a comprehensive list of conditions found from schools
of different countries that have been found to make multigrade teaching
a necessity.
1. Schools in areas of low population density where schools are

widely scattered and inaccessible and enrolment is low;
2. Schools that comprise a cluster of classrooms in different
locations, in which some classes are multigrade and some are
monograde;
3. Schools in areas of declining population, where previously there
was monograde teaching, and where now, only a small number of
teachers is employed;
4. Schools in areas of population growth and school expansion,
where enrolment in the expanding upper grades remains small;
5. Schools in areas where parents send their children to more popular schools within
reasonable traveling distance, leading to a decline in enrolment and a fewer teachers in
the less popular school
6. Schools in which the official number of teachers deployed justify monograde

teaching but where the actual number deployed is less. The inadequate deployment
arises from a number of reasons including inadequate supply of teachers, teachers not
reporting fully though posted to a school or teachers going on medical or casual leave;
7. Schools in which the number of students admitted to a class comprise more than
‘one class group’, necessitating a combination of some of them with students in a class
group of a different grade;
8. Schools in which teacher absenteeism is high and ‘supplementary teacher’

arrangements are ‘non-effectual’ or ‘non-existent’. (Little, 2001)
PREPARED BY:
CHRISTINE JOY B. CUNANAN-MAYORMITA
JECIEL T. CAÑETE
DOROMAL JANE LOVELY
BEED 3

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ASSESSING

Classroom organization: Instructional resources and the physical

1. Schools in areas of low population density where schools are

6. Schools in which the official number of teachers deployed justify monograde

8. Schools in which teacher absenteeism is high and ‘supplementary teacher’

DOROMAL JANE LOVELY

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