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Teacher Work Sample, Factor 7: Albenesius

Teacher Work Sample

Factor 7: Reflection and Self-Evaluation

Teague Albenesius

Gallaudet University
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Teacher Work Sample, Factor 7: Albenesius

Introduction

This factor discusses the reflection of my instruction and assessment plan of the four

Teacher Work Sample (TWS) lessons at the Maryland School for the Deaf.

Reflection on Performance and Learner Results

The learners were overall unsuccessful in the assessment of the cognitive objective 1.4,

with three students not meeting the objective, and one student meeting the objective. There are

several reasons that the students lacked success in this objective. On the day of the assessment,

the strategy Preview, View, and Review (PVR) was introduced for the first time along with the

new concept of character development. There are a variety of reasons why the students did not

meet this objective.

Some of my students are English Language Learners, meaning that visual supports can

greatly impact their understanding of vocabulary, concepts, and procedures (Price & Nelson,

2013). Within my written English portion of PVR, I used only one visual support in the form of a

drawing on the whiteboard. With written English being the students weaker language, students

may have needed more support in understanding the content.

This same text encourages that directions be presented in multiple modalities. While the

character development worksheet could have been modeled before hand, explained in written

English and in American Sign Language (ASL), the worksheet was only explained using written

English. Giving directions and explanations in a variety of ways can increase the chance for

retention, and the lack of diverse methods of instruction could be a reason that the students did

not meet the objective (Price & Nelson, 2013).

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Teacher Work Sample, Factor 7: Albenesius

Lastly, graphic organizers can be useful for both English Language Learners and Deaf

and Hard of Hearing individuals (Price & Nelson, 2013). While the worksheet itself was a

graphic organizer, with a lack of explanation of the instructions or modeling of the task, it

seemed as though students could not grasp either the concept or the assessment itself.

If I could revise the cognitive objective, I would change the objective to: Cognitive

Objective 1.4: With teacher-support, the student will describe their given character, expanding

on at least four character descriptions. I would change this objective for a variety of reasons.

First, this objective could much more easily be incorporated into the pre-assessment and

post-assessment. Second, this objective could be applied to a variety of activities, either by

incorporating this into different free writes or smaller writing assignments, allowing for more

authentic practice of the objective.

Professional Development

Looking back on this teaching experience, I have identified two areas that need further

professional development. The first area is assessment, specifically with developing an

assessment plan that has well-written goals and objectives that align with every part of

assessment. I believe that improving this area of knowledge would improve my performance in a

variety of ways. My assessment plan was weak looking back due to my misalignment in my

objectives with my pre-assessment and post-assessment. I have several ways that I plan to try to

improve my assessment plan and alignment next semester. First, I plan to work with my

cooperating teacher more next semester in relation to assessments in order to better understand

how they juggle modified objectives and IEP objectives in alignment with the whole class

lesson. Next, I plan to work with my practicum supervisor or seminar teacher, depending on their
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Teacher Work Sample, Factor 7: Albenesius

willingness, every week in order to develop a strong assessment plan. My hope is that by having

a well-scaffolded experience with lots of support and structure will provide me with a learning

experience that will be able to guide my future assessment and objective development. The last

goal that I have is to actively research my assessments using textbooks and research-based

information rather than self-developed assessments and assessments pulled from the internet.

While these assessments are not bad in and of themselves, these assessments can lack validity

and research assessing their reliability. My goal is to try to research every assessment I plan to

use and develop it appropriately using, at a minimum, the text Classroom Assessment; What

Teachers Need to Know by James Popham. Further independent research into this topic should

lead to a stronger assessment plan in the future.

The other area that needs to be improved is differentiating instruction for learners. My

incorporation of Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals were largely absent. I was unsure

of how exactly to incorporate such objectives and while I did incorporate the skills that were

covered in the IEP goals into the pre- and post-assessment, this is not an adequate or justifiable

inclusion of IEP objectives or different learning needs into the assessment plan. For this next

semester, I plan to be enrolled in EDU 777, Differentiating Instruction, because I believe that this

course will benefit me. My hopes for this course is that I will be able to learn how to incorporate

these objectives and goals into an instruction plan to benefit all learners and not just some. This

is an area next semester that I do not intend to ignore.

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Teacher Work Sample, Factor 7: Albenesius

References

Price, K.M., & Nelson, K.L. (2013). Planning Effective Instruction: Diversity Responsive

Methods and Management. 5th Edition. Belcont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.