Alyssa Supple

Professor Suk
Educational Field Experience EDUC 230-13
Spring 2015
Rationale Statement Unit Plan NJPTS Standard Six
Statement of Standard Six:
Assessment. The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to
engage learners in examining their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide
the teachers and learners decision-making (NJPTS, 2014, p. 28).
Name of Artifact: Unit Lesson Plans
Date of Artifact: March 12, 2015
Course: Education Field Experience EDUC 230-13
Rationale Statement:
The artifacts that I am examining, in relation to Standard Six, are the unit lesson
plans that I have constructed to represent a hypothetical, three-day poetry unit. These
lesson plans are intended to serve as a model for the actual artifact I will be creating as a
future educator. In regards to Standard Six on Assessment, these lesson plans deal
explicitly with both formative and summative assessment of student abilities, as they not
only outline the methods of teaching that I will implement, but also the methods I will
utilize for the evaluation of student growth and understanding of material. Since my
artifacts only represent a short, three-lesson unit, I realize that there are some
performances, as outlined by the New Jersey Professional Teaching Standards, that I did
not recognize directly, but I attempted to be as inclusive as I could, while still adhering to
the parameters of the assignment.
In all three lessons, I included formative assessments that involved non-graded
assignments and monitoring exercises to assess student understanding. I believe it is

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important to have ongoing formative assessments, as without the pressures of a grade, a
mistake made on an assignment will not be perceived as a failure, but as a chance for
improvement. Standard Six alludes to this process as it states, The teacher knows when
and how to engage learners in analyzing their own assessment results and in helping to
set goals for their own learning,(NJPTS, 2014, p.29). It is important to take these steps
to understanding and to goal setting day-by-day, so as to build students sense of selfefficacy. This is in preparation for summative assessments, which are implemented in a
way that match learning objectives with assessment methods and minimize sources of
bias that can distort assessment results, (NJPTS, 2014, p. 28). Summative assessments
should be an impartial way to address student understanding, and are representative of the
effectiveness of the teacher, as well as of student capability.
Upon further investigation of my lesson plan, I realize that my summative
assessment which was a quiz administered after two days of preparation may not have
been the most effective assessment because of the fast pace of the lessons preceding it. I
created this lesson plan with my own senior-year English class in mind, which was very
advanced and fast-paced, but upon reflection, I am not sure that the time I allotted for the
class to learn the material was long enough. While I provided the class with many
examples of the lesson objective, I am not sure that two days would have been enough
time for the students to take my corrections and feedback of their work and apply it to
their understanding of the material. If I was to actually administer this quiz, I may
discover that the students did not perform to their best abilities, and that would be a
reflection of my practices as a teacher.

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This exercise was one which opened my mind to how intensive learning
objectives and teaching practices are, and how much effort goes into creating a lesson
that is most beneficial for the students and which can be assessed objectively. These
lesson plans showed me that what may seem obvious to me is not always obvious to
others, and to be able to use these artifacts as a tool to understand how to adjust my
thinking and my practices to suit a wide variety of needs is invaluable to me. Keeping in
mind each students needs, and how my actions affect his or her learning, involves a
significant amount of metacognition, and by putting everything into words and onto
paper, it makes it easier to view inconsistencies in my thought process that may become a
detriment to my future students.
This artifact was particularly pertinent to myself as a future educator, as no matter
what subject or grade level you enter as a teacher, you will be required to compose lesson
plans and formative and summative assessments. I now have a better understanding of
assessment function and how to better implement these to be representative of student
understanding. I will use these artifacts as a template for my future lesson plans, and I
will further adapt them so as to help my students achieve their personal learning goals
through the use of assessment.
References
Professional Development in New Jersey. (2014, August 4). Retrieved from New Jersey
State Department of Education: http://www.state.nj.us/education/code/current/
title6a/chap9c.pdf