Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sarah Kretzer
Regent University
Introduction
There are so many different components that go into the instruction of students and
ensuring that they are all comprehending and gaining the best understanding possible. Planning
allows you to be prepared which is a very important thing to be as a teacher. Preparation goes
right along with planning, the use of pre-assessments help tremendously when it comes to
planning and preparation. They allow for you to plan and prepare to meet your students
individual needs. Then comes the instruction that is based on the planning and preparation, and
finally assessment allows for you to gauge your students understanding after you have given
them instruction.
The first artifact that I have chosen is a pre-assessment and an assessment on the
continents and the oceans. These assessments are aligned with SOL 3.5a that says, the student
will develop map skills by positioning and labeling the seven continents and five oceans to create
a world map. I gave the students a blank map for their pre-assessment and had them position
and label the seven continents and the five oceans on the map. I gave the exact same assessment
for the assessment after instruction. This allowed for me to compare the pre-assessment and the
assessment and to see how effective my instruction was and which students gained a better
The second artifact that I have chosen is the analysis and quantitative date from the pre-
assessments and assessments. The date shows that there was definitely a gain in understanding
after I gave my lesson. The average score on the pre-assessment was about 5 correct out of 12.
The average score on the assessment was about 10 correct out of 12. This information helps me
PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT 3
to see how effective my instruction was and also which students still might need some re-
I also included my lesson plan for teaching the continents and oceans. I used the pre-
assessment date to help me with my planning and preparation and my differentiation in the
lesson plan. For those students that already knew the continents and oceans, I gave them extra
practice on the laptops. And for those that really struggled or had no idea at all, I gave them a
word bank to help them and allowed for myself to give them a little extra one on one instruction
if needed. I also saw from the pre-assessments that a lot of the students knew the names they just
didnt know their positions. So I picked to songs to teach them that not only help remember the
names but they are in order of their position on the world map.
My classes at Regent have really helped me to understand curriculum design better and to
understand all of the parts that go into lesson planning and instruction; such as planning,
preparing, instructing, and assessing. In our curriculum design class we read a textbook called
planning your instruction. I have used this method throughout my student teaching and I find it
to be extremely productive.
Essentially you start first with the assessment. You look at what the SOL is and what the
end goal is and what you want them to understand by the end of the lesson or the unit. From
there, you create an assessment that encompasses all of the understandings you wish for the
students to gain. After the assessment is created, you use that as the tool that guides you in your
For this lesson in particular, I created the assessment in advance. I knew that I wanted the
students to be able to label a blank map with the continents and oceans without using a word
bank. I tailored my instruction to meet this assessment goal. I also really believe in the value of
pre-assessing. It allows for you to look at the data from the pre-assessment and really
differentiate your lessons to meet your students specific needs and know exactly what they are
struggling with and what they understand before you even begin the instruction.
PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT 5
References
Wiggins, G.P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.