Running head: PLANNING 1

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

Stacy Spivey

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2019

PLANNING 2

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

One of the pivotal roles of an educator is to plan and prepare instruction that meets the

needs of all learners, is aligned with state-issued standards, and assists them in being

academically successful. While teachers’ have copious amounts of resources they can reference

such as the state’s curriculum framework or professional learning communities (PLCs), it cannot

replace the use of assessments and data. “Assessment is an integral part of all aspects of daily

life,” and it is especially important to education (Taras, 2005, p. 468). Furthermore, the data

collected from assessments is individualized and, when accurate and thorough, reveals copious

amounts of information about the students’ academic needs. This allows educators to make their

instruction as productive as possible using differentiation, scaffolding, and other strategies.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

The first artifact is the pre-assessment and a post-assessment that I created for my

students for a math unit on probability. The pre-assessment assesses their prior knowledge of

probability while the post-assessment assessed their understanding of probability by the end of

the unit. Both assessments are aligned with the state’s corresponding math standard of learning

(SOL), which is SOL 2.14.

The second artifact I selected for this competency is the data tables that reflect the

students’ performances on the pre and post-assessments. The table includes each students’

individual grade, which are designated by numbers rather than their names to maintain their

privacy. Also, the table indicates each students’ achievement level when performing varying

skills regarding probability, all of which were from the Virginia Department of Education’s

curriculum framework. First, I designed the pre and post-assessment so that they assessed these

skills or essential understandings. Then, I calculated the percentage of problems they got right
PLANNING 3

for these skills or understanding, recording it in the table. For this reason, there is an additional

table below the data that explains which questions in the pre-assessment assessed which skill or

understanding. Likewise, the class’s average is noted for each section, allowing me to identify

areas of strength and weakness as a whole. Similarly, it allows me to assess their growth overall

from the beginning of the unit to the end of the it.

Additionally, I have attached the lesson plans as a secondary resource for reference rather

than an explicit artifact. The plans were originally crafted by another PLC in the grade level, so I

did not want to take credit for their work. However, as I was teaching from it, I made additions

or adaptions to the plans based on the data from the students’ pre-assessments and performance

on other assignments during the week. This reflects how the data informed my instruction and

what I did to help ensure that students understood each skill or essential understanding of the

standard. My alterations are highlighted in green for easier reference.

Reflection on Theory and Practice

Between college courses, my practicum, and even from completing data entry at my

tutoring job, I was inundated with the principle that collecting data is crucial. Since my

cooperating teacher for my practicum taught in an inclusion setting, she repeatedly told me how

important it was to record data and have documentation of students’ performance daily. As noted

by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, “…Robust evidence of student achievement requires more

than a single snapshot such as that provided by a once-a-year state test” (2005, p. 282). First, it

was necessary for students with IEP’s to measure the successfulness of their accommodations

and their overall performance. Second, regular data collection and documentation was needed so

that if she or a parent referred a student to special education services, she had data to supply that

reflected the students’ need or lack thereof for those services. Finally, the data overall was used
PLANNING 4

to shape her instruction, specifically with small groups. She would review the data and remediate

certain skills with students who were struggling, especially using response to intervention (RTI).

As a result, I would mention collecting data in interviews with future employers. Their

eyes would light up as they reiterated how necessary it is as an educator to collect data. While I

thought I understood the concept of data entry before student teaching, I did not realize the level

of its significance or how demanding it could be. Instead of simply grading papers and recording

the score in a grade book, I learned how to analyze the data further and assess students’

performance on skills or essential understandings pertaining to the SOL being covered. Not only

did this help me pinpoint areas of weakness in students’ individual comprehensions, but it often

revealed trends amongst students that needed to be remediated as a whole. This helps me

recognize areas of weakness in my instruction.

One example of this with the artifact was students’ ability to record the data from

probability experiments. I did not include this skill in my pre-assessment because I assumed that

once I modeled how to complete a tally charts, students would understand it. However, after

reviewing students’ tally charts that they made in the middle of the week when flipping a coin

100 times, I realized that students did not understand how to accurately use one tally to represent

one trial, or even that they did not know to group their tallies by fives. For this reason, I

remediated the skill the next lesson by modeling and adding more specific directions during

whole group instruction. In turn, the majority of students excelled with this skill in their post-

assessment, revealing a significant boost in their comprehension of this skill.

Likewise, I realized the importance of grading seemingly menial tasks like homework

because it would dictate what skills my instruction would cover during small groups and which

students I would meet with. Sometimes I would review the data and meet with students in the
PLANNING 5

morning to briefly review a skill that we would be continuing to use throughout the day so that

they would not be at a disadvantage later. On the other hand, it also helped me prepare additional

materials for students who were higher achieving and needed more challenging or independent

tasks to continue developing their skills so that their growth did not stagnate. Taghi Jabbarifar

writes, “Teachers need to know what and how much students have learned in order to monitor

the effectiveness of instruction, to plan ongoing instruction, and for accountability purposes”

(2009, p. 7). Even when provided with lesson plans and materials from other PLCs, I reviewed

my students’ data in order to ensure that the instruction best suited their needs, adapting the plans

rather than simply choosing what was most convenient. In other words, data is more than simply

a record of the students’ performance.

In order to be an effective educator, data must permeate and drive one’s instruction. It is

tedious and time-consuming, but it is worthwhile. The teacher can evaluate a student’s

understanding of a topic with pre-assessment before they develop their instruction or afterwards

with a post-assessment to determine the effectiveness of the instruction. It reveals which students

are excelling and comprehending the material and which ones are struggling, which is a much

more reliable indication of who needs help and what remediation is needed than assuming from

how the student’s general academic performance or their behaviors during lessons. The more

effort you put into data collection, the greater understanding you gain of your students’

comprehension of the material, as well as points of instruction that need to be restructured,

emphasized, or even detracted. For this reason, I will routinely collect data and utilize it to plan

instruction that helps my students reach their full potential as learners.

References
PLANNING 6

Jabbarifar, T. (2009). THE IMPORTANCE OF CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT AND

EVALUATION IN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM [Scholarly project]. Retrieved April 8,

2019, from https://my.laureate.net/Faculty/docs/Faculty Documents/INTI

Conferences/Parallel Sessions 4/4C/4C-03-P142 (Iran).pdf

Taras, M. (2005). assessment - summative and formative - some theoretical reflections. British

Journal of Educational Studies, 53(4), 466-478. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2005.00307.x

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA:

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.