Running Head: PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT

Planning, Preparation, Instruction and Assessment of Learners

Jennifer King
Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2015

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT

Introduction
Planning, preparation, instruction and assessment are the duties of a teacher that come to
mind. While teachers have many other duties, the teachers main focus in on how to craft
instruction to meet her or his students needs. My artifacts reflect how I have used assessment
data in my planning and preparation for my instruction.
Rationale
Artifact 1 is a table of the data I collected from 4th grade students on partial quotients.
The students had not been exposed to long division previously. I made the assessment based on
the final assessment I planned to use which the Virginia Beach City Public Schools provided
aligned with the Virginia Department of Educations Standard of Learning for Math 4.4. I kept
the same format and simply changed the numbers. I replaced the students names with numbers
for confidentially purposes. AP stands for Advanced Proficiency. Students who received AP
not only answered all four questions correctly but they also formatted their work correctly.
Students who scored a P, or Proficient, gave the correct answers but did not format their
work correctly. Students received a DP for Developing Proficiency if they missed one to two
problems while students who received and N for Novice missed from three to all of the
questions on the assessment. Nine students improved their letter grade by the final assessment.
Ten students scored the same letter grade, while four students scores fell to a lower letter grade.
Most students demonstrated some growth even though they did not increase their score. As
partial quotients proved a difficult concept for the 4th graders to grasp, I concluded that they
needed further practice so I continued to teach partial quotients to the students during math
centers even after we moved on to decimals. I chose this artifact because it shows how I used

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT

data from assessments to guide my instruction and provide for the individual needs of my
students.
Artifact 2 is a lesson plan I prepared and used to teach the students about partial
quotients. I began this lesson with a review of partial products and then I provided further
explanation on partial quotients. I engaged the students through having them share after having
time to think over the problem. I also allowed time for students to work problems with the
support of the whole class. I was able to provide further support and instruction for the students
who struggled with the concept while the students who had grasped the concept could work on
cementing their understanding of partial quotients. In order to practice partial quotients I divided
the class into four groups based on their performance on the first assessment. The students who
needed the most support I placed in the group Dreamers, and those who tended to error with
basic math computation errors or vocabulary I placed the group Critical Thinkers group. The
Collaborators consisted of students who had a basic understanding of partial quotients but kept
making math computation errors or skipped steps. The Creative Thinkers consisted of the
students who showed mastery of partial quotients. I chose this artifact because it shows that I
carefully plan my lessons around the needs of my students and that I differentiate my instruction
to meet the needs of all students.
Reflection
I believe that the students should be the center of the classroom. The whole purpose of
education is to guide students as they learn about the world around them. As a teacher, my
primary responsibility is towards the students and their acquisition of the material. My goal in
the classroom is for my students to understand not only the concepts, but how these concepts fit
into the rest of the world. Students need to develop a holistic understanding of the world and how

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT

all the subjects fit together in the world. In order for my students to develop this understanding, I
need to assess what understandings they already have about a topic and then plan which
experiences will allow them to interact with new ideas in a way that will broaden their
understanding of the world.
In order for the students to develop an understanding of the world, the teacher needs to
help students transfer the important aspects of the content. Transfer involves figuring out which
knowledge and skill matters here and often adapting what we know to address the challenge at
hand (Wiggin & Tighee, 2005, p. 41). Preparation and planning involves considering how
students will be able take the new information and use it as they try to solve new challenges. I
have found that while planning and preparation are essential, the actual instruction is vital as
well. If I am not able to communicate the key concepts in a way that the students are able to
understand, then it does not matter how much planning or preparation I put into the lesson, the
students still fail to understand. Assessing the students helps me focus my instruction in areas
where the students are struggling to understand. Experience is also an important factor in
understanding how students learn and how they process information.
As I grow as an educator, I will grow in my ability to assess the needs of my students and
carefully plan and prepare my instruction to meet their needs. I have gained valuable experience
in this essential aspect of education during my experience as a student teacher which will help
me grow in this area as I continue my journey as an educator.

PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT

Reference
Wiggins, G. & McTiche, J. (2005). Understand by design (2nd ed.).Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson.