Danielle Ruff

InTASC Standard 6: Assessment

In order for teachers to know the needs of their students, they must assess them.
Assessment is essential to instruction because teachers need to know what the students know and
do not know in order to be able to build a lesson and instruction upon the students background
knowledge. Multiple formative assessments should be given within a single lesson. Formative
assessments can range anything from observing students, to data driven assessments, such as
collecting an exit ticket and analyzing the data from the results. The types of assessments, or
questions asked on assessments should vary in both difficulty and delivery. Students learn
differently as well as assess differently so it is essential as an educator to assess students in a
variety of ways because a student who may perform well on a multiple-choice assessment, may
not perform as well on a discussion based assessment. To appropriately design lessons and units,
teachers must use student documentation and data to analyze their progress and analyze the
effectiveness of instruction.
What is this artifact?
This artifact is my Validated Practices Project that was implemented on a select 25 students at
Magnolia Middle School in fall of 2015. This project includes a pre-assessment, three lessons
with one literacy based lesson, a post-assessment, and a analysis of the assessment. The VPP also
includes student artifacts as well as the materials used for each lesson.
How does this artifact demonstrate mastery of the InTASC or COE standard?
The VPP demonstrates mastery of the InTASC standard by showing my ability to design
assessments that are aligned with the objectives as well as instruction. Based on my students
growth from the pre-assessments to the post-assessments, it also demonstrates my ability to
implement successful instruction. No only did I design and implement a pre-assessment and a

post-assessment, a variety of formative assessment strategies were used throughout each lesson
of the VPP.
In what way does this artifact contribute to/relate to a positive effect on student learning?
This artifact contributes to a positive effect on learning because through the implementation of
three lessons of the VPP, the students showed a significant amount of growth based on the results
from their pre-assessment to their post-assessment.
How does this artifact demonstrate the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle (judging prior
learning, planning instruction, teaching, assessing, analyzing, and reflecting)?
This artifact encompasses all aspects of the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle. I had to design
all aspects of instruction as well the assessments and implement the lessons to 25 students at
Magnolia Middle. The VPP also includes my analysis of my instruction and assessment data, as
well as reflecting upon my instruction and results in order to discuss future changes on
instruction.