TEACHER SOL: NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION: Assessment Informs Instruction (Profile)

Sunday, February 25, 2007

NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION: Assessment Informs Instruction (Profile)

As my submission date draws near (March 31), my school district and the teacher's Union extended additional support and services to the NBC candidates during the final stages of our pursuit to become a National Board Certified Teacher.

They collaborated for additional 3 consecutive Saturday classes on the portfolio components. The purpose of these sessions is to give candidates an opportunity to obtain additional knowledge and understanding of some of the basic components of the NBPTS' portfolio tenets: writing, videotaping techniques, assessing teaching and learning, and scoring.

I realized that I have been religious in following my schedule, I have finished my drafts on all 4 entries, the videos and now I am working on polishing each entry.

For Entry 1 "Assessment Informs Instruction", I have to demonstrate my ability to investigate a student's learning or behavior need, formulate a meaningful question directly related to that student's need, design and/ or select and then use an assessment tool(s), use the information gathered to implement new and/ or modified goals and then instruct in order to foster the featured student's growth and development.

For this entry, I have to submit the following:

- A Question Document = that provides evidence of my efforts to formulate a meaningful question related to the featured student's need.

- An Assessment Tool(s) Document = that provides evidence of my efforts to design and/ or select and also use this tool(s) with the featured student.

- The Question Document and Assessment Tool(s) Document combined will total no more than 6 pages.

- Written Commentary (13 pages maximum) that describes and analyzes the instruction and assessment featured in this entry.

- Student Profile (3 pages)
- Discussion of One Question (2 pages)
- Discussion of Assessment Tool(s) (5 pages)
- Reflection (3 pages)
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Student Profile: Ethel B.

The class where Ethel is in is a self-contained class with eight other students...

Ethel, my featured student, came to our school this year as a seventh grader after graduating from AB Elementary School...

The Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children IV was administered on December 9, 2004. Ethel attained a Full Scale IQ score of ...

Since the beginning, I have been collaborating with those working closely with Ethel to maximize her needs...

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UPDATE (11/22/2007): Here's a book that I bought from Amazon.com that I would recommend for those doing Entry 1 Assessment Informs Instruction. This book Assessing Learners with Special Needs by Overton has:

- The most up-to-date information available regarding laws and policies and current trends in the reauthorization movement.
- The integration of case studies in each chapter throughout the text to facilitate better reader comprehension and application of difficult concepts.
- More emphasis on Curriculum-Based Assessment and other methods of informal academic assessment.
- Thoroughly updated discussion of all pertinent revised tests now available.
- New and in-depth Companion Website material is integrated and connected to each chapter. (http://www.prenhall.com/overton)

Another book that you might want to consider is Assessing Students with Special Needs by McLoughlin. A colleague of mine has this book which I borrowed for my 2nd take for this particular portfolio. During my first take I had submitted too little evidence of my work with assessment. So I had to read more and get more information on how I can do better with using assessment to help my student's needs. This book has a lot of information that we special educators need: accessibility, balanced coverage of both this formal and informal assessment, plus thorough exploration of the link between gathering information and actually using it to make informed decisions. I would recommend this book too to all my colleagues in this profession:

* Please see the right sidebar for more on my National Board Certification candidacy...