Running head: Brown Rice- EDUC 614 ASTL Portfolio Reflection Point 1

Teacher as Designer of Curriculum & Assessment

Tracey C. Brown Rice

George Mason University

November 13, 2016

EDUC 614 Designing and Assessing Teaching and Learning has taught me how

to make thinking more visible when working with K-12 learners. Richhardt, et al. (2011)
Brown Rice- EDUC 614 ASTL Portfolio Reflection Point 2

encourages educators not to Tell to practice, but rather Engage in intellectual

activity to promotes minds-on thinking (p. 8-10). In my teaching, I have grown from

solely being systematic in finding practice that satisfies Standards of Learning to finding

a systemic and efficacy balance. I have learned how to use student interest, guiding

questions, and the understanding of students peers to help all learners gain a self-

discovered sense of taught content and a deeper understanding of learned information via

making meaningful connections. In other words, more Aha moments are drawn out on

purpose. I teach with my students opposed to teaching to them or at them with is the

emptily of the following learning outcome: Teachers know the subjects they teach and

how to teach those subjects to students.

As a way to further build student understanding, I got to better understand the

concept of differentiation. As apart of my schema, I was familiar with how to

differentiate or scaffold the learning (by product, process, content, etc.). However, my

knowledge was only at the recall level. I could only recite the how and cite a go-to

example of having tiered (easy, medium, hard) student practice, as the big idea was too

large to encapsulate. After reading and discussing Tomlinsons (1999) work, I was able to

see a clear picture of what differentiation is and what it entails, the details. Differentiation

is Personalized instruction and the first (and hardest) step towards implementing it is

[Knowing] where we want to end up before we start out and plan to get there

(Tomlinson, 1999). In summary, differentiation is establishing an academically

responsive classroom that promotes student-centered learning, guidance from the teacher,

and the use of multiple strategies to problem solve.

From strengthening my understanding of differentiation alone, I have seen a

Brown Rice- EDUC 614 ASTL Portfolio Reflection Point 3

difference between my current and two previous third grade classes. For example, my

students this year are less literal and have started the school year off taking pride in

showing and sharing their solving strategies. In the past, this mindset shift would be

commonly seen towards the end of Quarter 2, beginning of Quarter 3. I have not only

learned from my experience, but have taken into account learning outcome six, where

Teachers account for the needs of culturally, linguistically, and cognitively diverse

learners.

When reflecting on my administered assessments, the purpose has shifted from

assessing students on a specific concept to assessing integrated concepts. Opposed to

assessing students as a temperature check or at the end of a unit, and possibly spiraling

back to a few previous concepts, learning over time is examined along with real-life

thinking. For example, when assessing students in world geography, a small group

interactive activity, called Find Hannah, was used as a task. Here, students not only had

to read maps and use their knowledge of cardinal points, scale increments along with

latitude and longitude, students also had to use their estimation skills, which is typically a

math concept. Specifically, students had to estimate given coordinate points if they

differed from the labeled increments on the vertical and/or horizontal map scale. In

addition, as each level increases, the number of dots multiply (i.e. level one has two

blinking dots, level two has four blinking dots, etc.), causing it to become more of a

challenge to achieve the goal of finding Hannah on the given map. Without any direct

teaching, the majority of students were able to make the math and social studies connect

and too carry out the assessment goal effectively.

When administering the cited and other authentic assessments, I am keeping

Brown Rice- EDUC 614 ASTL Portfolio Reflection Point 4

failure from becoming chronic (Stiggins, 2007). Through the use of an authentic

assessment, technology, and an activity that peaked the interest of my students, my once

day-to-day assessment practices have evolved into a teaching and learning process that

strives to enhance, opposed merely monitor, student learning (Stiggins, 2007). It is here

that learning outcome eight has been addressed, in that Teachers use technology [,tools

that help students learn,] to facilitate student learning and their own professional

development.

Resources

Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to
Brown Rice- EDUC 614 ASTL Portfolio Reflection Point 5

promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learning. San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Stiggins, R. (2007). Assessment through the student's eyes. Educational Leadership,

64(8), 22-26.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). Mapping a route toward differentiated instruction. Educational

Leadership, 57(1), 12-16.