Curriculum Planning-Alignment Assignment - Research Paper Example

Mathematics presents low records in successive tests for the 9th, 10th and 11th. For instance, the subject recorded the lowest scores of 3% and 17% in the Grade 9 and 10 respectively (USA, 2012). As such, this plan observes that in terms of subjects, improvement strategies should target Mathematics. In terms of grades, the 11th grade presented the best performance followed by the 10th grade and the 9th grade comes last with the lowest performance. This states that the 9th grade demand improvements; thus, the action plan should focus on such a group.

According to the TAKS statistics, the performance increases up the grade levels. An objective that seems not to be met includes the need for students to comprehend the functional relationships. This means that students may get the answer but fail to highlight the procedures, which were instrumental in obtaining such answers. The objective 10 equally seems not to have been met since students show lessening knowledge in understanding and utilization of mathematical tools and processes. Students’ Problems on TAKS A major problem associated with the TAKS is the requirement that demands students to show how they arrived at each answer; thus, meeting the objective of comprehending functional relationships.

Most students find this challenging since putting such an explanation on the paper is strenuous. As such, a student who obtains an answer but fails to justify his procedure scores poorly. According to Perna & Davis (2007), most TAKS tests provide vague questions with authentic answers not provided as one of the alternative of the multiple answers. Interestingly, students who fail such tests cannot proceed to the next grade level. Such questions come as a surprise and disappointment to most students who fail to comprehend the context of the test (Parkay, Anctil & Hass, 2006).

Indeed, the test does not have an effective way of measuring students’ ability; hence, students who have sufficient knowledge may fail the test. Notably, most students find the broad curriculum provided by the TAKS quite challenging since they fail to comprehend the objective of the subject clearly. This indicates that objective 10, which necessitates persons to utilize tools and methodologies, has not been addressed. In fact, the program outlines numerous objectives, which confuse the students in the end (Perna & Davis, 2007).

Subpopulation that has poor performance According to Statistics, the subpopulation of males performs poorly in Social Studies, and the subpopulation performance varies with subjects. The performance of males in the social studies subject may be attributable to the attitude of the group. Perna & Davis (2007) observes that most males have low interests on the subject. Indeed, males’ interest tends to decline towards science subjects. Importantly, the female subpopulation presents considerable interest on social subjects hence grasp social concepts easily.

In fact, this position is supported by the high performances realized in mathematics and science subjects by the male subpopulations (USA, 2012). An Action Plan for improving student scores Addressing objective 1: Improving the understanding of functional relationships Initially, the structure should entail examination of the lesson plans and program