Running Head: PLANNING, PREPARATION, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

Sierra Allen
Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2016

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

Introduction
Imagine a classroom that is run by a teacher who does little to no prior planning. What
words come to mind? Chaos? Disorganization? Behavior issues? Very few people would think of
an effective and organized classroom. Educators need to put aside time to plan and organize their
classroom instruction. Students should have a routine, a schedule, and an organizational scheme
for their learning. This means that their teacher should have plans for the assessments, the daily
activities, their centers, and their instruction that is aimed toward the learning goals. This takes a
large amount of prior planning and preparation.
Rationale
My first artifact is the pre- and post-test that we used for the Rome unit. This assessment
was pulled right from the curriculum and is aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning,
SS.3.3: The student demonstrates knowledge and understanding of life in ancient Rome. My
students took the same test at the beginning of the unit and the end, so I knew exactly what they
already knew and what they still needed to learn. This test was focused on the resources found in
Rome, which was a big area of our instruction. My class as a whole did not do well on the pretest. Every student either had a Developing Proficiency (DP) or Novice (N). Their answers were
reasonable but, because we had just done the unit on Greece, many of their answers were based
on that material. Of course, I did not expect them to do well. This made planning the unit much
simpler as we were able to start from the bottom and build a foundation as a whole group. By the
end of the unit, 18 of my students had a Proficient (P), 6 had a DP, and 0 had an N. The highest
possible score on this test was a P.

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

The second artifact chosen is the Spend in Ancient Rome sheet. I chose this because it
was not a lesson that I did with my students, but involved collaboration. As we were planning
out this unit, we met with the gifted resource teacher (who we worked with often in our gifted
cluster classroom) in order to see how she could supplement the learning. We decided she would
do this activity with the students that involved some math and knowledge of the different coin
values in Rome. This was my first opportunity to collaboratively plan with one of our resource
teachers. I was able to lay the foundation for this activity and assist when she taught the lesson.
The third artifact is a comparison chart between Greece and Rome. It is a simple VennDiagram, but it was a great opportunity to help my students connect their prior learning to our
current topic. This also gave me a chance to see which areas they were really understanding and
which ones could use some more practice. This was done as a whole group lesson.
Reflection
Each third grade lesson required a large amount of prior planning and preparation. I was
placed in a gifted class with very inquisitive students, meaning I had to know as much
information about each topic as possible. When I was told I would have the unit on Rome to
teach, I immediately went to the assessment to begin my planning. This was a great resource and
guideline on what I should be teaching. I got the idea to plan this way from a course on
Curriculum Design. We learned about backwards planning and how we can benefit the students
by planning our lessons (and units) with the end in mind. Our lessons, units, and courses should
be logically inferred from the results sought, not derived from the methods, books, and activities
with which we are most comfortable. Curriculum should lay out the most effective ways of
achieving specific results. (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 14) When I planned out my lesson, I
knew my students needed to pass the assessment. It helped me understand exactly what we

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

needed to learn in class. I had to evaluate the assessment before deciding to use it, making sure it
covered everything I had discussed with my cooperating teacher. We were able to put together a
very thorough Rome unit.
Another aspect of my planning was to find ways I could differentiate instruction. Every
student has different educational needs and it is my goal as a teacher to meet as many of those
needs as possible. For my students at a higher level, I was able to give them some advanced
research questions in order to aid their individual study time. Those students who needed help
worked with me during centers for remediation (based on formative assessments done
throughout the lesson). We also did a whole group lesson on representative democracy that
involved a full classroom voting system and table representative so my students could
understand by acting out the roles. Differentiating instruction is the only way to make a lesson
accessible to every student. teachers who differentiate instruction strive to do what it takes to
diagnose student strengths and weaknesses in terms of readiness, interests, and learning profiles.
Then they provide an array of content, a variety of processes, and choice of products when
possible. (Powell, 2012, p. 112) One area of differentiation that teachers often overlook is the
students interest. Throughout the Rome unit, students were allowed to follow their interests in
their individual studies. Then, at the end of the unit, all of third grade was able to do a GrecoRoman museum featuring projects based on those interests.
References
Powell, S. D., & Powell, S. D. (2012). Your introduction to education: Explorations in teaching.
Boston: Pearson.

Planning, Preparation, Instruction, and Assessment

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development.