DUNCAN MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 1

Assessment: Evidence Based Instruction

Andrea Duncan

698 Master’s Portfolio: MAT Elementary

Fall 2023

University of Alaska Southeast

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Standard 6: 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.

The sample artifact of practice is my Teacher Work Sample (TWS) I created during my

student teaching course. There were so many aspects to this assignment that taught me new ways

to set measurable learning goals and calculate the learning gains made by my students. The

assignment was to set significant, challenging, varied, and appropriate learning goals and justify

the learning goals for the unit. I observed my kindergarten students and found that I had four

students who did not know all their letter sounds while the remainder of the class knew their

sounds and were starting to read phonetically. I decided that I needed to provide a different

learning goal for each developmental reading stage of my learners. Tompkins (2017) notes that

in the emergent reading stage, students notice environmental print, identify some letter names

and sounds, and recognize up to 20 high-frequency words. Beginning readers identify letter

names and letter sounds, recognize 20-100 high-frequency words, and use beginning, middle and

ending sounds to decode words (p. 120-121). One group of students were merging into the

beginning reader stage, where they were decoding CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words,

recognizing more high-frequency words, and knew their letter sounds. My other small group of

students were still in the emergent stage, where they did not know all their letter sounds and

maybe knew one or two high frequency words.

In the beginning of my TWS, I had set a separate learning goal for the two groups of

students. The first learning goal was set for my beginner readers who were ready to focus on

learning common high-frequency (sight) words, so I set the following learning goal: the student

will learn 4 new sight words every two weeks. The second learning goal was set for my students

who were behind in the emergent reading level and needed to learn their letter sounds, so I set
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their learning goal: the student will learn 4 new letter sounds in two weeks until they know all 26

sounds. Towards the end of the course, I realized that I ended up setting two sets of learning

goals when I only needed one, so in the end of the assignment I shifted my TWS to my students

who were in the emergent stage and behind in their reading skills. I needed to focus my

assessment and learning goal on this select group to help them meet the literacy standards set for

kindergarten and move into the beginning reader stage. From here on out I will focus my

discussion on learning goal #2, the emergent reading students who needed to learn their letter

sounds. In the TWS you will see both groups discussed until the end of the assignment where I

focused my work on the emergent readers.

In the Montessori classroom we put a huge emphasis on observations, especially as an

assessment tool. We do a quick assessment with the student each day or week, checking for prior

knowledge to help us determine what we need to teach next or where they may be needing more

focused instruction. Each lesson provides us an opportunity to check in and do an assessment.

Landrigan & Mulligan (2013) state, “assessment is more than a published test or tool that is

administered formally. Assessment is also the data we collect authentically, every day” (p. 2).

This is what I do every day, I collect data and take assessments on my students to see what they

know and how I may assist in their learning.

What the TWS assignment taught me was a new way to take assessments by setting

measurable, attainable learning goals that can be calculated to see the learning gains made by the

student. To set a measurable goal, I decided that I wanted my students to learn 4 new letter

sounds in a two-week period. This way I could determine if they were meeting those goals or if

they needed more instruction. In Figure 1 you can see the rubric I created for my learning goal

#2, with the two learning objectives set for the goal. Taylor & Nolen (2008) explain that
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“learning goals are broad statements about learning outcomes that reflect the ultimate aim of

schooling. Learning objectives are focused statements about the knowledge and skills that help

students achieve the goals” (p. 48). The first learning objective states the students will learn 4

new letter sounds every two weeks until they know all 26 letter sounds. The second learning

objective is the student will be able to state 4 words that start with the sound.

Figure 1

Rubric: Learning Goal 2

Learning Goal #2 Not Met Almost Meets Met Exceeds

The student will The student The student The student The student knows
learn 4 new letter knows only 0 or 1 knows 2-3 of the knows four new five or more new
sounds in two of the sounds in four letters sounds letter sounds in sounds in the two-
weeks until they the two-week in the two-week the two-week week period.
know all 26 letter period. period. period.
sounds.

The student will be The student can The student can The student can The student can
able to state 4 only give 0 or 1 think of 2-3 words think of 4 words think of 5 or more
words that start words that start that start with the that start with the words that start
with the sound. with the letter letter sound. letter sound. with the letter
sound. sound.

Slavin (2018) explains that “because instructional objectives are stated in terms of how

they will be measured, it is clear that objectives are closely aligned with assessment, which

consists of measuring the degree to which students have learned the objectives set out for them”

(p. 345). By creating the measurable objectives, it was easy to take formative assessments every

two weeks to see if my students were meeting the objectives I set out. At the end of the TWS

lesson, when I did my final summative evaluation, I tracked the final data to graph their pre-

assessment and post-assessment scores and then plug that data into the learning gains calculator

to see the progress of my students. See Figure 2 for the learning gain scores for each of my four

students, along with the overall learning gain score for the group. One student made exceptional
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gains, at 90%, while another student only made a 58% gain in their learning. This helped me

know who I needed to work with and shift my instruction to help them learn more letter sounds.

Figure 2

Learning Gain Scores for Learning Goal #2

The TWS was also informative in other areas, not just the learning gains, because there

are other factors that need to be considered when doing an assessment. I compared the data of the

sub-group of girls vs. boys because with the four students in the group, two boys and two girls,

the girls in my group had both missed more school than the boys during this assignment, which

had a direct reflection to the differences in the gains made by my two groups. The girls had a

lower gain score than the boys. I can set out as many goals as possible, but if students miss a lot

of school, they do not have as many opportunities to learn at the same rate. See Figure 3 for the

chart comparing the average learning gains of the boys vs. girls. I also factored in student

motivation and resistance to work. These four students were prone to resisting the work or

finding ways to avoid it, so I noted when this was occurring. Once they saw their own

progression on learning the letter sounds, the resistance was reduced, and the motivation

increased.
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Figure 3

Comparing Boys Vs. Girls Average Learning Gains

In addition to the learning goal for students to learn four new letter sounds in two weeks,

I also set out for my students to be able to think of four words that start with each letter sound. I

did not calculate this part of the data; this was an additional assessment to see if my students

were able to hear the letter sounds at the beginning of the word. This assessment has been a part

of the instruction that was built into our letter sound work, but it was the first time I had actually

written out what they could recall. Landrigan & Mulligan (2013) note that “assessment cannot be

separated from instruction. It is not an “add-on”, it is what we do every day as teachers. The

cyclical process of triangulating – analyzing, questioning, assessing – is embedded in

instruction” (p. 72). I am constantly triangulating my instruction, analyzing what my students

know, questioning their prior knowledge, and assessing to see if they are able to recall their new

information. This lesson allowed me to not only teach my students their letter sounds, but to put

the information down on paper to assess what they were learning. See Figure 4 for the students

assessment of the number of sounds my student learned every two weeks and the words he was

able to come up with that started with the letter sounds.

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Figure 4

Student Assessment Data for N.L.

The top of the assessment page shows how many words N.L. learned in every two-week period. There
were two weeks when he did not meet the learning goal, but then made up for it the following two weeks.
The two weeks he performed the lowest were the two weeks when he was resisting the work. The increase
in known sounds shows when he was eager and willing to do the work.

Taking assessments is a daily process built into my teaching. Most of my assessments are

done through observations, taking mental notes on my students prior knowledge, where they are

struggling, and where I should go next in my instruction. What I gained through my Teacher

Work Sample assignment, was the ability to set measurable goals, track the data over a period of

time, and then calculate that data to see how my students were progressing with that goal. To

really understand my data, I also had to make notes on attendance, students motivation, and if

there was any resistance to the work. I could see in my data how many different factors affected

the progress my students made. Soon after this lesson, all four of my students moved on to the

next step in our literacy curriculum where they started to sound out and write CVC (consonant,

vowel, consonant) words using their letter sounds. I was also able to start their instruction on

learning common high frequency words.

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References

Landrigan, C., & Mulligan, T. (2013). Assessment in perspective: Focusing on the reader behind

the numbers. Stenhouse Publishing.

Slavin, R.E. (2018). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (12th ed.). Pearson Education

Inc.

Taylor, C.S., & Nolen, S.B. (2008). Classroom assessment: Supporting teaching and learning in

real classrooms (2nd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

Tompkins, G.E. (2017). Literacy in the 21st century: A balanced approach (7th ed.). Pearson

Education, Inc.