Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College

Teacher Work Sample

Cover Page

Teacher Candidate Name: Tammy Meyers

Licensure/Program Area: K-6 Elementary Education / Mild Intervention
College Supervisor: Roberta Evans
School/Center : Lester B. Sommer Elementary
Grade/Age: 2nd
Subject : Math
Date: September 2015
Course Number ED 473
Tier Number (if applicable)
Score ________________________________________________________________________

Step 1: Classroom Context/Community and Family Engagement

a. Provide a brief overview of classroom/school environment. Discuss relevant factors related
to your current classroom placement and community and how these factors may affect the
teaching learning process. Include any supporting evidence and challenges that affect
instruction in your current placement. Examples of classroom factors are but not limited
to size and arrangement. Examples of student characteristics include but not limited to
socio-economic status, gifts and talents, and disabilities.
Lester B. Sommer Elementary is one of three elementary schools in the North Montgomery
Community School Corporation in Montgomery County, Indiana approximately 50 miles from
Indianapolis, Indiana. The State Department Of Education (DOE)s information for the 20142015 school year states that there were 291 students enrolled. 86.9% (253 students) are White,
9.6% (28 students) are Hispanic, 1.4% (4 students) are Asian, 1.7% (5 students) are multiracial,
and 0.3% (1 student) are black. 37.8% of the students receive free lunch (110 students) and 8.9%
receive a reduced price lunch (26 students)
Montgomery Countys biggest employers are factories such as R.R. Donnelly, Pace Dairy, Nucor
Steel, Acuity Brands Lighting. Other employers are Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health, Walmart,
Random House, and Banjo Corporation (Chamber of Commerce). People who are employed in
factory work often work second or third shift. Despite the shift work, in my personal experience,
school events are well attended by parents.
According to the DOE and the most recent testing data available, 70.8% of students passed the
Spring 2013-2014 ISTEP+ test in both Language Arts and Math. The 2014-2015 Third Grade IREAD test had a passing rate of 74.3%.
The second grade classroom I am placed in has 24 students. 4 have Individualized Education
Plans for a variety of needs including Other Health Impairment, Specific Learning Disability,
and Cognitive Learning Impairment. and one student is on the Student Success Team (SST)
which is what the school calls their Response To Intervention (RTI) program. Two additional
students have allergies for which they have epi pens, two other students have seizure disorders,
and 2 other students have behavior charts. The class has students with ADD/ADHD, mild

cognitive disability, specific learning disability in language, suspected dyslexia, and suspected
emotional disability. One student is an English Language Learner. His language has come a long
way, the ELL teacher reports that this student is bright and a fast learner.
The second grade classroom for my placement has 25 students. Initially, there were 24 students
enrolled at the beginning of the year; however, one additional student has enrolled. The class
consists of 11 boys and 14 girls.
The classroom is arranged in small groups of 4-5 desks in each group. There is also preferential
seating to help two students, who are easily distracted, be successful in the learning atmosphere
by providing them with an area to help them complete academic tasks when independent study is
necessary. Their seating is close to the classroom teacher and myself.
There are academic and socio economic challenges that affect instruction in my current
placement.

Academically, 4 of the students in this classroom are identified with learning

disabilities and receive services from additional teachers assistants throughout the school day.
Of those four students: one has a cognitive learning disability with accommodations in math,
reading, and writing. Another two have Specific Learning Disabilities in language/reading. The
other childs Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is for Other Health Impairment (OHI). Two
additional students also have ADHD but do not have IEPs. One child has not been identified with
a disability yet, but is suspected of having an emotional disability and is in the referral process
for testing.

Therefore, many lessons and assessments are modified to accommodate each

learning disabled childs Individual Education Plan (IEP). My current second grade placement
also has socio economic challenges as well. One particular challenge is student hunger outside
the school day. Lester B. Sommer Elementary has a food backpack program where qualified
children receive a backpack of food to take home for the weekend. A local organization called
Nourish sponsors the bags, supplies the food, and volunteers to pack the bags. Jill Callis, the
classroom teacher, is not sure how the school decides who qualifies for a bag, but four students

in this class receive bags. One of the four students actually takes home two bags every weekend.
There are only 24 bags distributed school-wide, and 5 of them are to students in our classroom.
Knowing that this particular class has a high level of poverty lets me know that the students
learning may be impacted. Living at or below the poverty level can be stressful for children who
are concerned whether or not they will have enough to eat over the weekend, whether or not
mom will be out of jail soon, whether or not grandma will earn enough tips to buy things they
need, and if they have to move soon. I know some students in this class are facing some of these
issues. They may be preoccupied with worries about basic survival and which could cause them
to have trouble focusing in the classroom setting and/or retaining academic information.
Sources:
Crawfordsville Chamber of Commerce
http://crawfordsvillechamber.com/community-resources.htm

Family and Stakeholder Communication and Collaboration

Family and community resources: Identify three family and/or community resources you
could use to support student learning (for example, guest speakers, field trips, etc.).
Our community has several fantastic resources to support student learning. Three family and/or
community resources I could use to support student learning are (1) Montgomery Countys
Museum, (2) a local fire department, and (3) local artists. Carnegie Museum of Montgomery
County shares information about the history of our county; and also has rotating exhibits.
Currently, they have an exhibit on the brain and are hosting related events. The museum is a
good place to take students on a field trip as admission is free, and the only cost of taking a field
trip there would be the bus driver and gas.
Our community has a friendly fire department. They are available to come speak to students or
to let students experience hands on learning activities by visiting the station and learning about

the daily life of fire fighters and how they protect our community. Not only would this be
incredibly fun for students, but it would also give them a better understanding of how
communities work and what to do in case of a fire at home or school.
Finally, local artists can support student learning by allowing students to see how art classes
taken at school can possibility lead them to a professional career. I am friends with one local
artist, Sue Brassel. Ms. Brassel has had artwork in the town art gallery and most recently
published two coloring books with intricate designs and motifs. Her job during the day is as the
Volunteer Coordinator at our Youth Service Bureau where she works with children who are in
foster care with Department of Child Services and coordinates the volunteers and their efforts.
She would be an amazing guest speaker to any grade-level classroom!

Family communication: Give two to three examples of how you will communicate with
your students families (i.e., newsletter, class website, personal notes).
Three examples of how I will communicate with your students families are as follows: (1) I will
communicate with parents through phone calls, (2) I will create weekly newsletters, and (3) I
will design a classroom website that is frequently updated with spelling lists, important dates,
suggested enrichment websites, and more.

Family involvement: Identify one way you can involve families during a school based
activity (i.e., parent volunteers, Open House, parent chaperones during a field trip or
dance, band boosters, etc.).
One way I can involve families during a school-based activity is by having parent and/or
guardian volunteers in the classroom. They could come in just once to help with copying,
sorting, cutting, arranging bulletin boards, etc. If a parent wished to volunteer on a somewhat
regular basis I could incorporate him/her into the classroom schedule and have them lead a small
group in playing a game or doing a project. Parent volunteers could also be guest speakers and

talk about their jobs or to read aloud to students. Finally, there could also be parents coming to
help with holiday parties throughout the year.

Family involvement: Describe one specific home activity related to one of your lesson plans
you could suggest for families to do that would support student learning, example: oral
history, reading with students.
One specific home activity related to one of my math lesson plans, for the unit on using addition
to help you subtract, that would support student learning is playing Addition War with a deck
of cards. All of the face cards and aces would be removed from the deck. Cards would then
place the stack face down. The first player takes two cards off the top of the deck, lays them face
up, and adds the two numbers. The next player repeats that process. The player with the higher
sum gets to keep all 4 cards. Play continues until all cards are gone. The person with the most
cards is the winner.

TEACHING CONTEXT DESCRIPTION

Class/Classroom Information
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Grade levels in the class: 2nd Grade

Ages in class: 7 and 8
Number of students enrolled in class: 24
Number of students typically present: 23
Time available each day to teach all students: 5.5 (excluding time for specials, recess, and

lunch)
6. Resources (equipment and supplies) available for this class (mark one):
___Well equipped and supplied (for example, multiple technologies, sufficient paper and
supplies).
_X__ Adequately equipped and supplied (access to technology and appropriate paper and
supplies).
___ Poorly equipped and supplied (limited technology and supplies or rationing of
supplies).
7. Community, District, and School Factors

As previously stated in the School and Classroom Overview, our students come from low to
middle class socioeconomic backgrounds. 21% of students in our class alone are in great need of
the Backpack program. In this class size of 24 students, there are 5 students who take home
backpacks of food on every Friday. One of those 5 students receives two backpacks. These
backpacks are filled with things like Ramen noodles, soup, peanut butter, and other food items to
help students who likely are food insecure on the weekends
Lester B. Sommer Elementary is a Title I School and, in addition to the backpack program, offers
free vision screenings, dental fluoride programs, and a REINdeer program sponsored by a local
youth organization that provides Christmas gifts for children whose families are unable to
purchase gifts themselves.
Individual Differences
1. Number of students in class with diverse languages: 1
2. Number of students in class with IEPs: 4
3. Number of students in pull out or supplementary programs:
This school does not pull out for special services other than speech and Tier 3 reading
instruction.
We have 4 students with IEPs who receive push in services from the special education team.
6 students receive intensive reading intervention via Tier 3.
12 students receive reading intervention via Tier 2 instruction.
3 students receive speech services.
1 student is in RTI.
1 student has been referred to start the RTI process.
0 students have been identified as gifted.
4. Patterns of Development
___8___Atypical __12___Typical ___4____Advanced

Step 2: Assessment of Prior Knowledge (Establishment of a Baseline)

Describe how you will determine what the student or group of students know. Describe how
this will be measured.
I will assess my students prior knowledge by administering a pretest for the math topic. This
pretest is Topic 3 in the Pearson EnVision Math Series which will determine students prior
knowledge of subtraction computation skills and understanding subtraction story problems. I

will score each pretest to see what the students already know and what concepts need to be
addressed for full understanding.

Describe how you will pre-assess student/s prior to teaching the/a series of lessons on a
concept, topic or subject. Be specific as to how you will pre-assess each measurable learning
goal. You are establishing a baseline to be used when comparing the students final
performance.
As stated above, I will give a pretest that will also serve as the post-test. The pretest covers each
math topic that was to be learned during the unit. My goal is for students to score at least a 5 out
of 7 correct. This is the minimum number correct they need to still have a passing score.

Provide a copy of the Assessment(s) of Prior Knowledge you will use (pre-test, KWL,
anticipation guide, rubric). Remember the assessment will be scored with numbers that can
be compared to the assessment of Student Learning in graph form.

Step 3: Planning Instruction

Provide lesson/activity plans that represent a series of lessons on a specific concept, topic,
or subject that you will teach. The lessons/activities should:
a. Provide evidence of competency in creating, evaluating, and incorporating
developmentally and culturally appropriate materials into the instructional
plans based on the State Academic Standards or Foundations for Young
Children.

LESSON 1

Lesson Reflection:
The students enjoyed having the forks as the visual for the beginning of the
lesson. They were attentive and eager to see what was going to come next.
This concept came easily for nearly all of the students. I think they have
done this in first grade so this lesson was more of a review than the
introduction of brand new information.
They like getting to play the Fiddlesticks game that the teacher has as one
of the centers. It builds up their ability to recall math facts fluently.

LESSON 2

Lesson Reflection:

The students enjoyed thinking of things that come in doubles (like the
egg carton is s 6 doubles). They also are happy to play my Dinosaur
Doubles game that I introduced. One of them said We like your game,
Mrs. Meyers. Then another student added Yeah, its fun! That was
good to hear! I had to emphasize that using doubles facts to help you
subtract will use all of the SAME numbers (4+4-8 and 8-4=4).

LESSON 3

Lesson Reflection:
This lesson had a great introduction because it had students standing up and
sitting down. Even the students that werent standing were interested in who
was and therefore they were quite attentive. This lesson was math that the
know (they know 3+5 is 8) but thinking about it in a new, unfamiliar way (If
3+5 is 8, then 8-3 must equal 5!).

When I teach this lesson again I will use the same introduction (students
standing and sitting) but repeat it multiple times to better reinforce the
concept.

LESSON 4

Lesson Reflection:
This lesson was pretty straight-forward. The special education teacher worked with
the students who have IEPs for math. I did the Mental Math cards with the groups
at that center today. It was a good thing that the cards were leveled because the
lower students definitely struggled. Surprisingly, even some of the students who
perform well in math struggled to think through multi-step mental math questions.

LESSON 5

Lesson Reflection:
This lesson went well and the students grasped the idea of missing part. To make
this lesson more fun in the future I would like to talk about it in terms of the
students needing to be detectives to find the missing part. Maybe some sort of
little skit at the beginning about how part of the story problem has gone missing
and letting the class use miniature magnifying glasses to highlight their answers.
If I can get a trench coat and detective style hat to wear when I intro the
lesson, that would make it even more fun!

LESSON 6

Lesson Reflection:

This was a good lesson and the students followed along well when we were doing
whole group instruction. They were able to see that problems can have several
steps to them and require you to find the first answer before you can find the
second answer.
Two children needed some help during guided practice. They need help figuring
out what to do first in the problem.
When I teach this lesson again I will stress What do you do FIRST in several of the

b. Include a chart of sequential teaching activities. List the State Academic

Standards or Foundations for Young Children and objectives and briefly
describe the activities and assessment for each lesson. Identify the Academic
Standards or Foundations that connect to your own lesson plan
outcomes/objectives.
Content Standards/Foundations
Standard/Foundation
2.2.1
Write equations to solve
single and multi-step
addition and subtraction
problems.
2.CA.1 Add and
subtract fluently within
100.

2.NS.2: Read and write

whole numbers up to
1,000.

Objective
Build students fluency
with using addition to
solve subtraction
problems.
Students will be able to
identify 0-less-than, 1less-than, and 2-less
than.

Learning Activities
Flying Subtraction
Booklet

Give students counters

and model how to
show 1 less than 3
and so on. Have
students use their
manipulatives to
answer problems.
Students will be able to Game: Dinosaur
identify addition
Doubles
doubles.

Assessment
Grade each booklet and
check for correct
answers.

Check each students

manipulatives and
correct as needed
before moving on to
the next problem.

Students will play the

game in pairs while I
circulate among groups
to monitor their ability
to compute addition
doubles.

Step 4: Implementation: Teaching & Learning

Describe an assessment plan to monitor student progress toward learning

outcomes/objectives.
I will assess the students work daily during instruction and after instruction. During instruction I
will check for understanding by calling on students, having them give a thumbs up when they
have an answer, and circulating around the room to answer individual questions. After
instruction I will assess the practice page they do independently and ensure that they understood
the days topic.

Describe how technology will be used in the planning and/or instruction. If there is no plan
to use any form of technology, provide a clear rationale for its omission.

The classroom has a Promethean Board and uses the online curriculum website for the Pearson
EnVision Math Series. Each day I will introduce the lesson topic and activate prior knowledge.
We then will watch a short interactive video from the curriculum online. Finally, I will use the
Promethean board to pull up a copy of the students guided practice sheet so that I can model to
the class how to correctly complete the practice sheet.

Describe the assessments that you will conduct before, during, and after instruction. The
assessment should be aligned with the outcomes/objectives, contain both qualitative and
quantitative data. These assessments should authentically measure student learning and
may include performance-based tasks, paper-and-pencil tasks, or personal communication
The paper-and-pencil pre and post-tests are written by the Pearson EnVision curriculum. The
questions are designed to assess each topic from Unit 3. There are 7 questions; 5 are story
problems, 2 are simple computations; all are multiple-choice. This will give me a concrete way
to measure student growth.
During instruction I will also assess via daily worksheets done independently and informal
assessment while I talk with students in small groups to determine the skills they need to practice
more.

Discuss how you changed your instruction based on what you have learned from your
assessments.
One example of how I changed instruction based on what I learned from assessment was that I
went back and emphasized how to properly write a subtraction sentence; in second grade, when
we write a subtraction sentence, the largest number has to come first. I purposely explained it
this way because in older grades you obviously can put a larger number first in a subtraction
problem but of course in second grade we dont do negative numbers. Still, I didnt want to give
them the wrong impression and make them think you only ever do bigger numbers first in
subtraction. So I always worded it as In second grade when we write a subtraction sentence we

have to put the big number first. I had been seeing students write 3-9 when what they really
meant was 9-3. Over the course of several days I repeated over and over that biggest number
goes first or when having a student read me how they answered a question I would reply Yes!
Taelyn remembered that the biggest number has to come first in a second grade subtraction
sentence!

Pearson EnVision Unit 3

Pretest Student Scores

Number Of Students With

This Score

After
administering the pre-assessment, analyze student performance relative to the learning
outcome/objectives. Create a table, graph, or chart to depict the results of the pre-test to
clearly indicate the baseline of performance. Find patterns of student performance relative
to each learning outcome/objective. Describe the pattern you found that will guide your
instruction or modification of learning outcomes/objectives.

The pretest data showed that out of 23 students, 61% of them received a passing score (5/7 correct is a
71%) before being taught the material. This pattern showed me that the students were, largely, on gradelevel expectations. My goal is for the remaining 39% of students to score passing grades by the time we
reach the post test and for the 48% of students who passed but not with a perfect score to raise their
scores
Because the majority of the class is at grade-level, I will teach the lessons as outlined in the curriculum
and use re-teaching or enrichment activities as needs arise.

Show evidence of re-teaching and adapting lessons/activities beyond the original lessons.
How is student performance affected by re-teaching or adaptation, please refer to the
baseline.
I adapted my teaching in one great way by creating a mental math activity for one of the math
centers. An adult always manned this center: either the classroom teacher, the special education
teacher, or myself. The mental math center consisted of cards that I created that reinforce the
math concepts the students have been working on.
The teacher reads color-coded cards aloud and the child tries to answer it. Green cards are for
students on grade-level, orange cards are for students approaching level., and blue cards have
more difficult mental math problems suitable for students above grade level. The teacher then
reads a new card to the next student in the group and so on. This is an adaptive component of
my teaching because the cards are leveled.
This activity will give students practice with math fluency and multi-step problems. I expect that
the students will gain confidence, and that those who struggled with the pretest will sharpen their
math skills. With regards to story problem re-teaching I did that on an individual basis with
students. When I could see they were struggling with their independent work, I would go sit with
them and help them understand the problem and develop a strategy to solve.

Step 5: Assessment Results and Analysis of Student Learning

Assessment data shows student growth and lesson effectiveness.

Pearson EnVision Unit 3

Post-Test Results

Number of Students

10
8
6
4
2
0

Number of Students With This

Score

Number of Questions Correct

At the pre-test, 61% of students had a passing score; by the time of the post-test, 70% students had a
passing score. 22% of students at the pre-test had a score of just one or two problems correct; however,
by the post-test only 9% of students were still scoring in that range.

Pre-Test and Post-Test Comparison

Pre-Test Score
Post-Test Score

Step 6: Reflection and Self-Analysis

Since the conclusion of the work sample, what have you done to help students accomplish
the objectives and improve their learning?
To help students accomplish the objectives and improve their learning, I have continued to focus
on activating students prior knowledge before teaching a lesson as well as trying to tie the topic
into real life scenarios. For example, this past week I taught a lesson on number words, and we

talked about where they have seen number words and why they are important (such as becoming
an adult and having to write a check, or receiving a check and not being sure how much it was
for).

What was the original expected outcome of the lesson(s) taught?

Originally, I expected that students would progress throughout the math unit and gain a greater
mastery of the topics within the unit. This outcome was indeed true, and I was thrilled to see that
of the nine lowest scoring students on the pre-test, eight of them raised their score on the post-

test. This is an 89% success rate.

What were your assumptions of the students knowledge prior to teaching the lesson?
My assumptions of students prior knowledge were that they had familiarity with subtraction
concepts. I thought, correctly, that they were familiar with what subtraction is and the basics of
how to do it. The students tended to want to just know which two numbers to subtract rather
than really delving deeper and using addition strategies to solve subtraction problems.

Based on the result you obtained and your experience with this body of instruction, what
will you do differently in planning, teaching, and assessing the next time you teach this
content or concept?
When planning, teaching, and assessing the next time I teach this content, I will continue to seek
out hands-on ways to teach math lessons. Furthermore, I will keep finding or creating engaging
games that students can play during their center time that reinforce the desired skill.

What did you learn about your own teaching and assessment skills?
I have learned that my teaching skills in the content area of math are good, but not yet
exemplary. My desire is to keep building expertise and fine-tuning my phrasing for how I
explain concepts to students. My assessment skills are solid, and I am able to assess students
appropriately and in a variety of ways.

What adaptations did you need to make based on the formative assessment you did during
the lessons? How did you adapt your instruction for individual needs?

While teaching I used formative assessments to monitor student understanding. When I could
see that only a few hands were raised to answer a question, or that the people answering a
question were incorrect, I would back up and reteach what we had just done until it was better
understood.
I adapted my instruction for individual needs in a couple of ways. First, one of the students has
dyslexia. Many of our worksheets have some story problems on them and, for that student, I
would be sure to go over to him and read them aloud. Another student has a cognitive learning
disability, so I would spend extra time helping him or make sure that the special education
teacher was in our room to provide support for the students with math minutes on their IEPs.

Does the evidence support actual student learning?

The evidence supports student learning by showing rising test scores. At the pre-test only 3
students scored a 100% but by the post-test that number had more than doubled and 7 students
had perfect scores!

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your own teaching.

I have both strengths and weaknesses in my own teaching. The strengths of my teaching are that
(1) I am always prepared and have given thought to the lesson beforehand, (2) I try to encourage
participation from all students by both calling on those who raise their hands and also calling on
those whom I see starting to lose focus, (3) I am flexible in my teaching as I am able to adapt
mid-lesson and change directions if a student is struggling and/or when the class, in general,
needs more instruction to fully understand a particular skill, (4) I am a very creative teacher. My
creativity comes out in the games and activities that I plan for the students to use during their
centers time. I love when a student says I like your game, Mrs. Meyers! Its fun!

I understand that weaknesses are a part of anyones teaching. Some of my weaknesses are (1) I
need to improve in becoming more familiar with grade-level standards and (2) becoming familiar
with the actual curriculum. Both of these things will come as I gain more experience.

Identify some areas for your future professional growth.

As stated above, I will continue to professionally grow as an educator particularly in math
education and learning techniques to communicate ideas in a clear, effective way. I hope to read
more about Debbie Dillers math philosophy. My cooperating teacher has a Debbie Diller book,
but I did not have time to read it during class, as I was busy teaching!