InTASC Standard #6: Assessment
InTASC #6 - Assessment
The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher's and learner's decision making.
Related NSTA Standard
Impact on Student Learning - Effective teachers of science provide evidence to show that P-12 students' understanding of major science concepts, principles, theories, and laws have changed as a result of instruction by the candidate and that student knowledge is at a level of understanding beyond memorization. Candidates provide evidence for the diversity of students they teach.
Artifact #1: Assessment Portfolio
Description: This artifact includes a collection of assessment items for a unit on ecology including multiple choice, true-false, and as questions as well as a group project on invasive species and a laboratory experiment on the limiting factors of plant growth.
Artifacts and Reflection
Artifact #2: Discussion Post - Assessment for Learning
Description: This artifact represents a discussion post prepared for my Teaching for Learning class on the meaning of "assessment of learning" and "assessment for learning."
How Do These Artifacts Demonstrate Achievement of the Standard: Artifact #1demonstrates achievement of this standard by engaging learners in multiple ways of demonstrating knowledge and skill. The assessment portfolio includes both lower-order questions that test students’ knowledge and comprehension and high-order questions and critical-thinking tasks that require students to analyze, apply, synthesize and evaluate. Artifact #2 demonstrates this standard through reflective thinking about the purpose of different types of assessments. The discussion post includes several strategies for formative assessments that I would implement in my classroom to gauge student understanding.
How Have These Artifacts Impacted My Understanding of Teaching/Learning?: Creation of these artifacts helped me realize that there are many different types of assessments that can be created to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit as well as monitor ongoing student learning. By providing a variety of assessments, a teacher can evaluate multiple levels of student learning including basic understanding as well as the ability to analyze, apply, and evaluate what they learned. Assessments are not only important for evaluating students, they are also important for evaluating the effectiveness of instruction. Analysis of assessment data can be used to determine whether modifications to lessons or additional review time is needed.
Strengths: One of my strengths is my ability to combine my content knowledge and knowledge of assessments to create assessment items that challenge students on multiple levels.
Areas for Improvement: One goal I have is to gain experience and improve by ability to identify how instruction should be modified in order to improve student learning. This is something I will continue to reflect on and collaborative with my mentor teacher to improve.