1

GAGUINE MASTER’S PORTFOLIO

A teacher facilitates, monitors and assesses student learning. The candidate demonstrates
their understanding and use of multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their
own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learners’ decision
making.

Assessment is one of my weakest areas in teaching, and thus a place I should be able to

grow the most. The teacher work sample we did for our student teaching requirements helped me

to understand the importance of examining student work to show evidence of growth. I used to

think assessment was just something you graded: a worksheet, a quiz, or a test. But assessment

can be so much more, “Assessment events are occasions when teachers gather information about

students’ learning.” (Taylor & Nolan, 2008, p.5).

This definition gives more flexibility than the traditional idea of assessment. My teacher

work sample (TWS) has a mix of traditional assessment and more authentic assessment, using

Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide. (Bloom, as cited in Wiggins and McTighe, 2005). The

culminating assessment in my TWS was the creation of word problems for future students. This

not only asks the child to create, the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, but to apply their new

skills to real life problems.

Given a focus on understanding, a unit or course will naturally be anchored by

In the case of my TWS, assessment was the first activity of the unit, a “pre-quiz” which gauged

what the students already knew. Because this assessment’s purpose was to decipher what they
2
GAGUINE MASTER’S PORTFOLIO
knew, they were allowed to use manipulatives in the classroom, and work with friends if they

chose.

The pre-quiz lets me know where to start and how to group students. In the case of my

TWS I could see some students would benefit with more in-depth review of the earlier rules of

mathematics and more frequent mini-lessons, whereas my other group of students could have

slightly longer lessons, with more time for independent practice in between. Both groups would

get the same information, but the pre-quiz showed me how best to deliver it to the students.

[A]ny assessment that informs instruction is super valuable, and these are often
administered before teaching a unit of instruction. Sometimes these assessments are
called diagnostic assessments, and other times they are called formative assessments, but
the purpose is the same. When these assessments are given, teachers use the data or
results to inform instruction, based on their new awareness of students’ strengths and
areas of weakness. (Novak, 2016, p.194)

I had never used a pre-assessment like this before, and I found it very helpful. Most often,

my pre-assessments are an informal discussion before a lesson to see what the child thinks they

know about the subject. Having a concrete piece of evidence of the child’s understanding on that

day and time made the pathway to which lessons I should give much clearer.

The next type of assessment that happens in my TWS is formative assessment, a type of

progress check.

Progress checks can range from informal study sheets and short writing assignments
(“quick writes”) to formal quizzes or tests and Writer’s Workshop-style writing
assignments. Interviews with students can also be useful as progress checks. Students’
perceptions of their own work and abilities are often quite revealing. Individual portfolios
and journals allow teachers to keep a chronological assessment of their students’ daily
work. Teachers are the best observers of student performance in the classroom.
Modifications of assignments are necessary if students are performing below appropriate
levels for individual language development and content mastery. (Echevaria & Graves,
2015 p.142)
3
GAGUINE MASTER’S PORTFOLIO
In the case of my TWS assessment, the formative assessment happened during the

lessons, since I always did a gradual release of responsibility model (Miller, 2013) with my mini

lessons (I do, we do, you do). I was able to do corrections during the “we do” part of instruction.

The student’s independent work would happen in their math journals, and I would come by and

have them show me their work, in which I could see what mistakes or misconceptions might

need to be corrected. This is all happening without the students even knowing they are giving me

valuable information about their learning.

This kind of formative assessment, making small tweaks while a child is practicing, is

invaluable to making sure that they are practicing a skill correctly. Once children seem ready, a

summative assessment can be given to see how they’ve grown from that first preassessment.

“Once students have learned material… teachers can give summative assessments, which

measure a student’s growth since the formative assessment. Both formative and summative

assessment can take many different shapes. As long as the product allows teachers to assess

student learning in response to specific standards, the assessment is doing its job” (Novak, 2016,

p.195). The summative assessment needs to test similar skills and present similar problems to be

solved as those in the diagnostic or pre-assessment. The summative assessment also needs to

match up with the lessons that were given and the formative assessment that was happening

during instruction to tweak lessons on the road to the goal: the standard being taught (Taylor &

Nolan, 2008).

Most of the assessments in my TWS are in the lower half of the levels of Bloom’s

taxonomy. They measure things like applying rules, understanding patterns, and remembering

information. The top levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, analyzing which mathematical process to use,
4
GAGUINE MASTER’S PORTFOLIO
evaluating the process, and creating, are not used in those assessments. And that’s where the

final performative assessment in my unit comes in.

The last assessment of my TWS is to ask students to create a word problem that use the

new rules of algebra they have just learned. These word problems needs to be based in real-

world situations.

An assessment approach grounded in authentic work calls for students (and teachers) to
come to two important understandings: first, learning how adults in the larger world
beyond the school really use or don’t use the knowledge and skills that they are taught in
school; and second, how discrete lessons are meaningful, that is, how they lead to higher-
quality performance or mastery of more important tasks.” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005,
p.155)

By giving students the task of creating a word problem based in the new skills they’ve learned,

it’s asking them to transfer their knowledge from just pen and paper to real life. School is

supposed to be a preparation for life, and most often in life, we are not given clean and clear

problems to solve.

In conclusion, assessment is a way to make sure our teaching is working. We have a

number of different assessment types, and different times to give these assessments, to help us

keep the pulse on whether or not the students are understanding what we are trying to teach

them. My TWS was an eye-opening experience to me about the power and importance of

assessment. It was a great way to show the students how far they had come.
5
GAGUINE MASTER’S PORTFOLIO
References:

Echevaria, J. & Graves, A. (2015) Sheltered content instruction: Teaching English learners with
diverse abilities. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Miller, D. (2013) Reading with meaning: Teaching comprehension in the primary grades.
Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Novak, K. (2016) UDL now: A teacher’s guide to applying universal design for learning in
today’s classrooms. Wakefield, MA: CAST publishing.

Taylor, C. & Nolan, S. (2008) Classroom assessment: supporting teaching and learning in
real classrooms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe J. (2005) Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.