Assessment for 3rd grade geography on states

Hypothetical Assessment for 3^rd Grade Geography on States

                        By the end of the semester, students will be able to identify the 50 United States by full name, two letter postal abbreviations, the shape of the state, and the area of the United States in which the state resides.

The United State map will be broken up into 5 sections: Northeast region, Southeast region, Midwest region, Southwest region, West Region.

Northeast region	Southeast region	Midwest region	Southwest region	West region
Maine ME	Louisiana LA	Illinois IL	Arizona AZ	Colorado CO
New Hampshire NH	Alabama AL	Indiana IN	New Mexico NM	Idaho ID
Vermont VT	Mississippi MS	Iowa IA	Oklahoma OK	Montana MT
Massachusetts MA	Florida FL	Kansas KS	Texas TX	Nevada NV
Connecticut CT	Georgia GA	Michigan MI		Utah UT
Rhode Island RI	North Carolina NC	Minnesota MN		Wyoming WY
New York NY	South Carolina SC	Nebraska NE		Alaska AK
New Jersey NJ	Virginia VA	North Dakota ND		California CA
Pennsylvania PA	Kentucky KY	Ohio OH		Hawaii HI
Delaware DE	Tennessee TN	South Dakota SD		Oregon OR
Maryland MD	Arkansas AR	Wisconsin WI		Washington WA
	West Virginia WV

            At the end of each phase of teaching, a formative assessment will be given to include a fill in the blank of the State abbreviation, for example:

·         Maine _____________

·         New Hampshire ________

Additionally the students will be given regional blank maps to fill in the abbreviation of the state with its corresponding shape.  For example:

(Foresman)

1.____________              6.__________                   11._________

2.____________              7.__________

3.____________              8.__________                  

4.____________              9.__________      

5.____________              10._________

At the end of the class the students will be given a 50 question fill in the blank test with all of the States names and a fill in the blank United States map. 

Holistic Rubric for Assessment:

++ 2 points per question	Demonstrates Knowledge of State Name without error Demonstrated Knowledge of Abbreviation
+1 point per question	Demonstrates knowledge of State Name but contains spelling error Demonstrates knowledge of Abbreviation but contains spelling error
+0 point per question	Does not demonstrate knowledge of state name or abbreviation

Testing Constraints:

Students will be given 1 hour to complete final assessment.

Test and Essay Items

Test and Essay Items

Test and Essay Items

One of the first ways to test if students have learned the names of the states is to give the students a test with filling in the states name next to the states two letter abbreviation.  For example:

_____________________  AL

_____________________ AK

_____________________ AZ

This form of testing is a completion test and with this particular test for this particular, it leaves little room for misunderstanding that can occur in completion tests.  

The teaching of the shapes of the states is a little more complicated and should actually be broken up by state or by groups of states.  I would start by breaking  United  States into 5 section such as  NorthEast, SouthEast, Central, Midwest, and Pacific and going over the states located in the sections, identifying the shapes of each state and giving brief facts about the states.   

Finally, the students should be able to be given a blank map of the United States and be able to write the name of the state in its designated area.  Again this would be a form of completion test. 

The advantages of using completion tests are that they are relatively easy to make and guessing is eliminated since the question actually requires the student to recall the information.  Additionally, they often take less time to complete, so more information can be covered.  (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2010)

Reference:

Kubiszyn, T. & Borich, G. (2010). Educational testing & measurement: Classroom application and practice (9th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

Learning the States

My hypothetical class is a group of 3rd graders and the unit would be geography/social studies.

The objectives would be as following:
1.  Learn the names of the 50 United States.
2.  Learn the shapes of the 50 United States.
3.  Match the name of the State to the shape.


The students will begin by learning the names of the 50 states.  They will then be shown that each state has it's own individual shape.  Ultimately, the students will be given a blank map and state name tags and will be required to match the names of the states with their respective shape.