For my senior seminar class while student teaching, I conducted an action research project at my student teaching placement.  Through my research and coursework, I decided to research the effects of journaling on students' writing and motivation for writing.  My research and implementation for the project brought positive results and I saw many improvements in my students' learning.  100 percent of my class improved and also enjoyed writing more because of the free writing and class journaling time.  This project shows my knowledge of Standard 7 which says, “The competent teacher understands and uses appropriate formative and summative assessments for determining student needs, monitoring student progress, measuring student growth, and evaluating student outcomes. The teacher makes decisions driven by data about curricular and instructional effectiveness and adjusts practices to meet the needs of each student.”

This rubric was created during student teaching and was used as a checklist for students' while they were creating their clay lands project in social studies.  Performance indicator 7K says that, “The competent teacher appropriately uses a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate the understanding, progress, and performance of an individual student and the class as a whole.”  This rubric not only helped me evaluate the completed project but helped me evaluate where each student was in the project process.  It both formally and informally assessed the students' progress and knowledge of the material.