Running head: PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND

ASSESSMENTOF LEARNERS

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment of Learners

Meaghan Comstock
Dr. Cheryl Gould
Regent University
17 April 2015

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT OF

LEARNERS

Introduction
When I first entered the classroom as a student teacher, I knew right away that
when it came time for me to start teaching that I had to take math first. It was the one
subject that I had disliked the most when I was in elementary school, and I knew that if I
didnt tackle it first that it would be much harder to teach later on. I am thankful that I
started teaching math first because it helped me become more confident with it, which in
turn, made the students more confident. However, it takes a lot of work to create a math
unit plan, and the only way that I was able to create that unit plan and then perfect it was
through planning, preparation, instruction, and assessment.
Rationale for Selection of Artifacts
There were a lot of parts of this competency; I never knew just how much the
teacher had to do when they transitioned into a new unit, but when I got to do it on my
own, I had a new respect for what it takes to introduce and teach a new unit. The first
artifact I chose to include was a page from my notebook, where I wrote down what I
needed to cover when I was getting ready to plan the unit for math SOL 2.8. The Virginia
Department of Education (VDOE) gives this definition for this SOL; The student will
create and solve one- and two-step addition and subtraction problems, using data from
simple tables, picture graphs, and bar graphs (Virginia Department of Education, cite).
My cooperating teacher explained that this was going to be the first time that the students
were encountering this SOL. They had never had to use information from a graph or table
to solve a multi-step problem. The notes I took during my collaboration with my
cooperating teacher were to act as my guide as I wrote the plans for this unit.

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT OF

LEARNERS

The second artifact I chose to include was the pre-assessment I gave, however,
this was given on Wednesday, 3 days into our unit, and was supposed to act as a identifier
for which students needed remediation, which needed to just keep practicing, and which
were ready to be challenged more. I decided to include this as an artifact for my preassessment because it was so essential to my own learning, and it let me know that I
needed to go back and reteach in a different way. Because we were only on day three I
was able to backtrack without a real problem, but I realized that I needed to go for help
much sooner. This was a great learning experience for me; I saw that if I was struggling, I
was the one who needed to go to someone for help. This pre-assessment, which was
supposed to be a mid-way assessment, turned out to be a very important part of this unit
and my teaching.
The third artifact I included for this competency was a Smartboard activity that I
created for the day after I gave the pre-assessment that was supposed to be a mid-way
assessment. After meeting with my teacher, and discussing what I needed to change in
my teaching of this unit, I realized that I was asking questions that were far too
complicated for my class. Not only was I in a second grade classroom, I was also in an
inclusion class with students who needed to be taught with simple questions, and at a
slower rate. When I taught using this new Smartboard activity, the difference was like
night and day. Suddenly every student, the ones at the very top, and the lowest ones,
understood how to solve one- and two-step addition or subtraction problems using a table
(we were working with tables that day).
The fourth and final artifact I included in this competency was a picture of the
checkpoint that students took on the final day of this unit. The checkpoints that we did

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT OF

LEARNERS

were like mock SOLs, and they also gave the teacher information about which students
got the unit, and which did not. Of course the goal was to have every student pass and do
well on the checkpoint, so that was why I had to do a mid-way assessment, and that
ended up becoming my pre-assessment for this unit. I had to reteach the information that
would be on the checkpoint, or else the students would have no idea what to do. The
checkpoint I included was one of my students, and they were one of many students who
did very well on this checkpoint.
Reflection on Theory and Practice
Testing is a fact of life for teachers at any grade level. Although the second
graders I was with were not going to take any SOLs at the end of the year, they still had
other checkpoints and benchmarks that they were working towards. Planning,
preparation, instruction, and assessment are key to creating plan for a unit that is gradelevel appropriate, as well as engaging and clear. Sometimes the teacher has to go back
and reteach when they see that the way that they have been teaching is not working. The
students will clearly tell the teacher if they have understood the information that has been
given; whether it be via verbal/physical queues like I do/dont get it, or every hand is
raised after having been asked a question, or even through the results of a check for
understanding. Something I learned that is clearly connected to this competency is that it
is okay to not know how to teach something, or what is wrong with the way I am
teaching, but I have to be the one who seeks help and then alters the way I teach so that
the students can truly learn. Planning, preparing, instructing, and assessing are things that
are done individually, but they are also done simultaneously, and they all work together
for the benefit of the students.

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015