INTASC principle eight deals with assessing students in the classroom. This principle means that I assess my students formally and informally all the time and that if the students do not do well on these assessments that I modify my plans to help promote student achievement. Informal assessments can range anywhere from orally asking a check for understanding question to a group project that is given during class. A formal assessment is more along the lines of a unit test or a standardized test that is given from the county or state. For example, during my high school internship while my students were learning about nationalism in tenth grade world history I had them take the knowledge they had learned from previous lessons and design their own country. This project tied in a lot different aspects the students had been learning throughout the unit. I would apply this principle in the classroom by asking questions during a discussion and giving activities that I feel would help the student achieve in understanding the material for that day. If the students did not understand the material for that day, then as the teacher I would go back and modify my lesson plan to try it differently the next time around. I would also change my lesson plan for the next day so that I could try a different approach to the material and hope that the students understood it with the new approach. INTASC eight is very important because if the teacher does not assess the students’ knowledge then how do they really know if the students are learning what they are supposed to or not.
Artifact A is the Validated Practices Project which was completed my first rotation of student teaching while at Magnolia Middle School in Harford County Maryland. During this rotation I was teaching seventh grade social studies. For this project I taught three lessons and gave a pre and post assessment with information from the three lessons on it. This artifact demonstrates my proficiency in this principle because throughout the project I used a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate and prove my students learning. At the end of the lessons to formally assess my students they would have to complete an exit ticket which was generally a couple of questions based on the information from that day’s lesson. Homework was also another way to gauge if the students were learning the information from that lesson or not. My last formal assessment for the three day lesson series was my post assessment which asked multiple choice and one BCR question about the information from all three days. Informal assessments took place during the lesson in the form of walking around and monitoring the students’ answers during an activity and by asking questions during the lesson that checked for understanding. This artifact has had a positive impact on student achievement because in order for me to know if my students are learning I need to formally and informally assess my students’ knowledge of the information. The assessments and activities throughout this project were successful which is proven by the excel chart attached above which shows that the average score from the pre to post test increased twenty two percent. This artifact demonstrates the “planning” aspect of the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle because while planning I must plan a variety of assessments throughout a lesson and a unit in order to evaluate and prove my students learning. The lessons in this project include a few different assessment techniques in order to ensure my students learning.
Artifact B is the Validated Practices Project which was completed my first rotation of student teaching at Magnolia Middle School. While at the middle school I taught seventh grade social studies. For this project I taught three lessons and gave a pre and post assessment that included information from the three lessons. This artifact demonstrates my proficiency in this principle because while planning the lessons in this project I took into account previous lessons, student’s previous assessments, and the needs of my students. After my students took the pre assessment I took the results and used them to help guide my planning a little more. The results of the pre-assessment showed me what the students may have heard of before and what they knew nothing about. With these results I knew what information I needed to stress more than others. Informal assessments included monitoring the students while they read for an activity, while they worked on activities, and through asking questions to check for understanding. I was able to monitor the students while they read because I had everyone use a highlighter to mark important information during the reading. This was to help not only my students who may have trouble picking out the information but it helped them find the information quicker when referencing it during a discussion. This artifact has had a positive impact on student achievement because I was able to use the formal and informal assessments to determine if the students were ready to move on to a new concept or if I needed to re-teach the concept using a different approach.I know that the information got to the students and that they understood it based off of their post assessment scores which can be seen on the excel chart attached above. This artifact demonstrates the “planning” of the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle because I used the informal and formal assessments to gauge my planning process. The assessments were able to tell me if my students understood the material or not. The assessments also helped me show whether or not my activities were successful and helped me know if I could use a similar activity again or if I would need to change something.
Artifact A is the Validated Practices Project which was completed my first rotation of student teaching while at Magnolia Middle School in Harford County Maryland. During this rotation I was teaching seventh grade social studies. For this project I taught three lessons and gave a pre and post assessment with information from the three lessons on it. This artifact demonstrates my proficiency in this principle because throughout the project I used a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate and prove my students learning. At the end of the lessons to formally assess my students they would have to complete an exit ticket which was generally a couple of questions based on the information from that day’s lesson. Homework was also another way to gauge if the students were learning the information from that lesson or not. My last formal assessment for the three day lesson series was my post assessment which asked multiple choice and one BCR question about the information from all three days. Informal assessments took place during the lesson in the form of walking around and monitoring the students’ answers during an activity and by asking questions during the lesson that checked for understanding. This artifact has had a positive impact on student achievement because in order for me to know if my students are learning I need to formally and informally assess my students’ knowledge of the information. The assessments and activities throughout this project were successful which is proven by the excel chart attached above which shows that the average score from the pre to post test increased twenty two percent. This artifact demonstrates the “planning” aspect of the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle because while planning I must plan a variety of assessments throughout a lesson and a unit in order to evaluate and prove my students learning. The lessons in this project include a few different assessment techniques in order to ensure my students learning.
Artifact B is the Validated Practices Project which was completed my first rotation of student teaching at Magnolia Middle School. While at the middle school I taught seventh grade social studies. For this project I taught three lessons and gave a pre and post assessment that included information from the three lessons. This artifact demonstrates my proficiency in this principle because while planning the lessons in this project I took into account previous lessons, student’s previous assessments, and the needs of my students. After my students took the pre assessment I took the results and used them to help guide my planning a little more. The results of the pre-assessment showed me what the students may have heard of before and what they knew nothing about. With these results I knew what information I needed to stress more than others. Informal assessments included monitoring the students while they read for an activity, while they worked on activities, and through asking questions to check for understanding. I was able to monitor the students while they read because I had everyone use a highlighter to mark important information during the reading. This was to help not only my students who may have trouble picking out the information but it helped them find the information quicker when referencing it during a discussion. This artifact has had a positive impact on student achievement because I was able to use the formal and informal assessments to determine if the students were ready to move on to a new concept or if I needed to re-teach the concept using a different approach.I know that the information got to the students and that they understood it based off of their post assessment scores which can be seen on the excel chart attached above. This artifact demonstrates the “planning” of the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle because I used the informal and formal assessments to gauge my planning process. The assessments were able to tell me if my students understood the material or not. The assessments also helped me show whether or not my activities were successful and helped me know if I could use a similar activity again or if I would need to change something.