Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. My Rationale
3. Current Resume

Professional Standards

1. Content and Curriculum
   
   
2. Knowledge of Students and their Learning
   
   
3. Learning Environments
   
   
4. Assessment
   
   
5. Planning and Instruction
   
   
6. Professionalism
   
   

Assessment

"Teachers understand and use a range of formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continous development of all learners."

Artifact (as evidence of meeting standard)

As a student teacher I was regularly reflecting upon, and attempting to improve my methods of student assessment. Like many other instructional areas for which I was responsible; I had little experience or mastery of methods of assessment. I was aware and comfortable with the traditional forms of assessment including tests, quizzes and homework that simply tested for content mastery. However, I was intimidated by the concept of finding ways to assess the students’ ability to understand concepts and themes and the level of their active engagement.

As a teacher I believe it is important to assess the students on three different levels: mastery of content information, understanding of themes and concepts, and participation in active engagement. I believe it is important to use all three levels of assessment to fully understand a student’s strengths weaknesses, and overall learning progress. As a student teacher I found tests, quizzes, and written work to be good ways of assessing a student’s content mastery. It was a more consuming task, however, to assess their higher levels of understanding. I used journal entries, essay questions, discussions, debates, and big -picture engagement questions to asses their understanding of themes and concepts and active engagement.

I found my greatest tool to ensure the validity of my assessment was the development and distribution of rubrics. The initial creation of a rubric allowed me to develop my expectations for a particular assignment. The distribution of the rubric to the students allowed me to effectively communicate my expectations. By using a rubric to evaluate and assess a student’s work I was able to easily communicate the student’s quantified achievement.

I also believe it is critical to involve every student in assessing their own learning. Rubrics provided students with a tool to fulfill this goal. Students were able to assess their own progress and success while completing the assignment. They were also able to generate a self-awareness of their strengths and weaknesses via the rubric.

AdditionallMay 3, 2004t student learning with the students themselves, their families, and other teachers, in a manner that improves everyone understands and encourages continued academic progress and community support. By maintaining complete, up-to-date, and detailed assessment information I was able to access the this information on a daily basis to personally communicate a student strengths, weaknesses, and progress to the student, parents, teachers, and other school support staff via email, phone calls, parent teacher conferences and school support team meetings.

One of my goals associated with life long learning is to expand and improve my understanding of both traditional and non-traditional forms of assessment. This is a concept that I only started to explore as a student teacher and defiantly did not master. Through collegial reflection and assessment as well as individual research I hope to greatly improve my assessment methods and practices as a teacher.