Running head: PLANNING INSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT 1

Kimberly Witham

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2017

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Introduction

Teaching a classroom of students requires an ample amount of planning. A teacher

needs to make sure that all students are meeting their goals at their individual levels. Some

students may understand a lesson right from the beginning, while others may need more detailed

instruction. In order to be an effective teacher, it is important that teachers are planning,

instructing, and assessing these lessons so that the students are meeting the SOL standards. One

way to help with time management is to offer a pre-assessment before teaching the lesson. By

doing so, teachers can see what prior knowledge the students already have, begin to group

students accordingly, and it can help guide the lesson.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

The first artifact that I selected is an anecdotal recording sheet for my measurement unit.

I selected this because it was extremely beneficial during my placement with my fifth grade

class. This sheet allowed me to easily keep track of all my students by giving them a pre-

assessment to each lesson I taught during the measurement unit. Based on their pre-assessment, I

was able to group the students accordingly and adjust my lesson plans as needed. I was able to

provide enrichment lessons for some groups, while having remediation groups for others. At the

end of the lesson, I provided the students with a post-assessment and recorded it on the same

sheet. If the students did not score a Proficient, I would remediate with them the following day.

The second artifact that I selected is an example of a pre-assessment and post-assessment

that I gave to all the students before and after I taught the lesson. This particular one is a pre-

assessment and post-assessment of the same student. This lesson was from Virginia SOL 5.8e:

The student will choose an appropriate unit of measure for a given situation involving
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measurement using U.S. Customary and metric units (VDOE). This student received a grade of

DP (developing proficiency) on the pre-assessment, but received a P (proficient) on the post-

assessment. By giving the pre-assessment, I was able to see that most of the students in the

classroom had prior knowledge of U.S. Customary units, but they were not as familiar with the

metric units. I went back to my lesson plans and adjusted them so that I could touch base on U.S.

Customary and center the more of the focus on the metric units.

For my instruction, I had the students tell me words that they knew about measurement.

As they told me, I wrote them on the Promethean board. I made sure to put the U.S. Customary

words on one side and the metric words on the other. After they said all of the words that I was

looking for, I drew a line down the middle separating the U.S. Customary and the metric units. I

asked them if they knew why I did that, and several of them did, and then I labeled them. We

discussed each unit and the students gave examples of each as I made an anchor chart. As

expected, they had hardly any problems with the U.S. Customary units.

For the next couple of days, I continued to plan activities that would engage the students

so that they would understand the metric units. Due to the pre-assessments, my students were

grouped by their readiness. Several of the higher students were able to do an enrichment project,

while struggling students were able to work with manipulatives to help them better understand

the lesson before moving on. Preparing many different activities for different levels is no easy

task. However, the more I worked with the students, the easier it became. I soon found out which

activities worked for them and what activities didnt work. Preparing without knowing your

students interests is like taking a shot in the dark; its hit or miss. Unfortunately, I missed on

many occasions. On the other hand, I soon built relationships with my students and I knew what
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would make most of them eager to learn. In the end, my preparation became a lot easier the

closer I became with my students.

Reflection on Theory and Practice

Collecting data on students can seem like a daunting task, but once a system is put into

place, it is beneficial to both the students and the teacher. I discovered during my first placement

that being able to quickly glance at my guided math anecdotal sheets was extremely helpful

because when my students came to the table, I knew exactly where they were from the day

before. With this specific data sheet, I was able to know just by doing pre-assessments how much

prior knowledge the students had on lessons from determining length to determining

temperature. Once I knew their prior knowledge, I was able to plan and prepare exactly how I

was going to instruct the classroom in a way that would meet the SOL standards. Finally, at the

end of the lesson, I was able to see just how far each student had come in such a short time.

Unfortunately, there were occasionally students that required remediation after the post-

assessment as well.

Wiggins and McTighe (2005) stated that multiple methods should be use when assessing

the progress of students (p. 152). Throughout my instruction, I made certain to use many

different ways of assessing students as students should be assessed on a consistent basis. An

effective teacher should be able to assess students not only by right or wrong answers, but also

assess the way in which the students are finding their answers.
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References

Education, V. D. (n.d.). Mathematics. Retrieved April 01, 2017, from

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/mathematics/index.shtml

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development.