INTASC PRINCPLE 8

The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and insure the continuous intellectual social, and physical development of the learner.

Assessment is a tool that I use throughout the learning process: from pre-assessment to gauge the students’ level of prior knowledge at the beginning of the unit, to informal daily assessments to determine whether students are meeting lesson objectives, to formal assessments to ascertain whether students are capable of demonstrating and applying what they’ve learned. I employ frequent assessments to understand my students and to tailor instruction to their intellectual, social, and personal needs. In addition, I encourage students to assess their own learning needs and accomplishments as one step towards instilling a sense of responsibility for their own learning.

Artifact 8.1: Picture Poems 4^th Grade Language Arts

Rationale: I displayed the colorful, action-packed picture of “Thanksgiving” by Doris Lee to serve as a quick model and inspiration for just the prewriting step of composing a “picture poem” (A). However, when I assessed how the students captured the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings to describe the picture in their journals, I realized the class needed more direction before attempting to write their own picture poem (B). The next day, I returned to the “Thanksgiving” picture again and asked the students to write one descriptive phrase for the picture using two randomly assigned words from a class brainstorming session. We collected these phrases on chart paper and were delighted with the vivid picture we were able to paint with words (C). When I shared a revised version of the poem with the class the next day the students were excited with the results and took away a valuable lesson on the role of revision (D). I too, took away my own valuable lesson on the role of informal assessment and the importance of modifying my instruction based on assessment. I felt confident that most of the class was ready to apply this process to their own picture poems, but I continued to assess student progress and provide individual guidance where necessary (E,F).

Artifact 2. Geometry Assessment 4^th Grade Mathematics

Rationale: I began our geometry unit with a quick tour of the use of shapes in art to confirm the class’ familiarity with basic polygons. After spending time exploring and comparing different quadrilateral shapes, I designed a worksheet to assess my students’ understanding before moving on to other geometry concepts. (A). The assessment confirmed that the students had attained the objective of “identifying and naming” the shapes at an appropriate level. It also confirmed that most of the students had begun moving to the next developmental level of understanding involving the recognition of geometric properties, although this skill had not yet been fully developed. We continued exploring the remaining unit objectives involving the concepts of congruent and similar figures and lines of symmetry. At the conclusion of the unit, I designed a performance-based assessment which involved the students applying and writing about all the concepts in the unit (B). Because I modeled the activity and provided clear criteria (C), the students were able to demonstrate their understanding—and have a little creative fun, too (D,E)!