Running head: PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, & ASSESSMENT 1

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, & Assessment of Learners

Tiffani Cosendine

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2019

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Introduction

For teachers, planning and implementing instruction requires great intention, thought, and

attention to individual student needs. As I have been learning throughout my student teaching

experience, there are countless ways to present material to students, and it is our job to ensure

that we are giving instruction in the most understandable and meaningful way possible. In order

to prepare lessons, you must have clear objectives followed by differentiated tasks that will help

each individual student develop proficiency of the material. A pre-assessment may be a good

indicator of how much students already understand about a topic and what areas the teacher

needs to focus on for each student. This paper reflects the competency of planning, preparation,

instruction, and assessment of learners and evidence of how I have implemented a pre- and post-

assessment, gathered results of the assessment, and proceeded to implement instruction based on

the data I recorded.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

The first artifact I chose to represent this competency is a set of pre- and post-

assessments I gave to my class along with the quantitative results of each of the assessments in

the form of a spreadsheet. The assessment tools were comprised of three SOLs pertaining to

decimals (Math 4.3b, 4.6a, and 4.6b). There were three questions for each of the SOLs on the

assessments, resulting in 9 questions total. I chose this artifact because it reflects how I

determined students’ prior knowledge on a topic through a pre-assessment and then documented

student progress through a post-assessment after teaching the concepts.

The second artifact I chose to represent this competency is one of the lesson plans I

devised after reviewing the results of the pre-assessment. This particular lesson plan focused on

Math SOL 4.3b: The student will round decimals to the nearest whole number. There were also

additional objectives in the lesson in the form of VBOs, or Virginia Beach objectives since I am
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currently at a Virginia Beach school. These included finding the benchmarks of a decimal (or the

whole numbers in which a decimal lies in between) and identifying where a decimal would be

located on a number line. I chose this artifact because it demonstrates how I used the results of a

preassessment to differentiate instruction for higher students (those who showed overall mastery

of the concepts) and lower students (those still working to achieve mastery).

Reflection on Theory and Practice

Assessment is crucial to the successful implementation of differentiation in the

classroom. Without first assessing what students already know about a concept, it is impossible

to focus on areas where they require the most guidance. Planning instruction requires immense

thought and care on the teacher’s part. According to the article “The Role of Assessment in

Differentiation,” there are three phases of instruction driven by assessment: (a) planning

instruction (the preassessment phase), (b) guiding instruction, and (c) evaluating instruction

(Moon, 2005). During my planning instruction stage for this unit, I devised a preassessment that

would test students’ prior knowledge on three upcoming objectives pertaining to decimals. I

issued the preassessment and collected data in the form of a spreadsheet. As one could see by

looking at the spreadsheet, the results were scattered. While three students showed perfect

mastery of the objectives, two students demonstrated no previous knowledge at all of the

material; the rest fell in between.

Next, for the guiding instruction stage, I introduced the different concepts in small groups

over the course of about a week and a half. Students were grouped by how well they performed

for each objective, and students spent at least a few days on each objective performing various

tasks in their small groups. Students struggling with the concepts received extra guidance during

this small group time. Lastly, for the evaluating instruction stage, I created and issued a post-

assessment of the same content and prepared another spreadsheet with the results. Post-
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assessments provide evidence of student growth and mastery of a concept, and I was able to see

this when comparing the two spreadsheets. The overall class average went from 55% to a 77%,

and every single student was able to improve their score. This whole process reflects the

assessment portion of this competency.

Following the preassessment, I came up with a lesson plan for how I would present the

material. A lesson plan “sets the stage for teaching and learning … it is the blueprint for

instruction. The plan documents what and how students will learn” (Skowron, 2001). After

looking at the first section of the pre-assessment spreadsheet, which focused on Math 4.3b,

rounding decimals to the nearest whole number, I divided students into groups based on their

understanding of the concept. We spent two days on the lesson, though struggling students

received additional tasks the following days if necessary. For this lesson, I had two groups that

were higher (those who showed partial or overall mastery of the concepts) and two groups that

were lower (those still developing understanding of the concept). With the higher groups, I

briefly reviewed rounding before moving on to the next portion of the objective. This was

accomplished with a worksheet. The lower groups completed a longer version of the worksheet

with more problems before moving on, and I provided them with more guidance than the higher

groups. On the second day, the higher groups reviewed concepts from the previous day but with

larger decimals. At one point I was giving students decimals that reached the thousands place,

but the students found this challenge exciting and were able to easily complete it. Afterwards, I

gave the higher students the task of creating their own decimals and then writing down the

benchmarks of that decimal and drawing their own number line to show where that decimal

would be located. Lower groups continued with practicing concepts from the previous day.

When reading a report on lesson planning, I came across this statement: “When student

teachers are able to create their own lesson plans, they have taken a giant step toward ‘owning’
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the content they teach and the methods they use. It takes thinking and practice to hone this skill,

and it won’t happen overnight” (Gafoor& Farooque, 2010). I thought this was a good perspective

and certainly relatable. As a student teacher, I am still working on how to develop my own style

with lesson plans and discovering what approaches work best for me. One of the goals outlined

in my teaching philosophy is that I want to strive to meet the needs of all of my students. While

differentiating activities may require more preparation and intention, it is necessary to ensure that

all students are being met at their level, high or low, and then being brought up to higher levels.

To prepare this lesson, I had to decide how I would differentiate tasks for the different groups.

Upon reflection, I wish I had been able to differentiate more so than I had for this lesson, but I

felt that this lesson was a good start to practicing that. Furthermore, in preparing the lesson, I

also had to decide what decimals I would use, and I had to make sure I had a mixture of smaller

and larger decimals to work with. On day two, I gave each student, higher or lower, their own

decimals, meaning no person in the group had the same decimal to work with. That way, I knew

which students were understanding the concept without simply copying answers from another

group member. I also gave each student a larger decimal each time they found the correct

rounded number, benchmark, and placement on a number line for a certain decimal. This ensured

that students were being challenged. By the end of day two, the majority of students showed

mastery of the concepts.

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References

Gafoor, K. A., & Farooque, U. 2010. Ways to improve lesson planning: A student teacher

perspective (Report No. ED517056). Chitradurga, Karnataka, India: All India

Association for Educational Research International Seminar Cum Conference on Teacher

Empowerment and Institutional Effectiveness.

Moon, T. R. (2005). The role of assessment in differentiation. Theory into Practice, 44(3), 226–

233. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4403_7

Skowron, J. (2001). Powerful Lesson Planning Models: The Art of 1,000 Decisions. Arlington

Heights, IL: SkyLight Professional Development.