Nervous System

Pre-student teaching, Spring 2014

Experience/Artifact:
The artifact Ive chosen for this standard is a quiz that I wrote during my pre-student teaching.
It is a 15 question quiz about the nervous system that was made with pictures for an iPad
program called Socrative. Ive typed up the questions and attached them here to use as my
artifact. While I was completing my hours at the middle school in a seventh grade science
classroom, I worked with about 35 different students. This quiz was one of the forms of
assessment that I was asked to create for the classes.
Alignment Number Eight, Assessment: Teachers know how to test for student progress. The
teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and
ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the pupil.
This aligns with the Wisconsin Standard number eight, Assessment, because I was asked to
create the quiz for the students to take at the end of their next unit. As I observed my
cooperating teacher, I learned how she presented questions to her students and also how she
created them to be easily understood by all. In this classroom there are multiple students with
IEPs, and I had the opportunity to work with them in an individual setting. While making this
quiz, I had to make sure that each of the students in this room would be able to understand and
complete it without confusion. Being in the classroom and spending time with the students
really helped me become more competent in assessing their learning from having these
experiences. I was able to consider each student while writing the quiz, and create it in a way
that would be beneficial to all of the students, including those with an IEP.
UW-Platteville KSD Alignment KSD1.b., Demonstrating Knowledge of Students:
This experience aligns with the UW-Platteville KSD1.b., Demonstrating Knowledge of Students,
because I was able to create my assessments to cater to all of the students. I used my
knowledge of the students developmental backgrounds from their IEPs and my observations
of their learning styles to guide me when writing up quizzes. I was able to develop an
assessment that was clearly set out by the goals of my cooperating teachers lesson, and by
using the Socrative program, I was able to give immediate feedback to the students.
KSD1.f. Assessing Student Learning
KSD3.d. Provides Feedback to Students
KSD4.a. Reflects on Teaching

What I learned about teaching/learning:
I learned that there isnt one correct way to assess students, but many different ones, and
although some forms work better for most students, they may not work at all for others. Being
able to recognize the different forms of assessment that work for a specific group of students is
important because it allows for the most efficient assessment. I learned that creating a quiz
isnt as easy as it seems. There is a skill set necessary for designing a form of assessment, and
making sure that it is fair to each of the students that will be taking it. I think that it is very
important for teachers to be able to design assessment that is suitable for every student in his
or her classroom. I learned that through observation I can learn about my students and how
they learn, as well as how they process the information and questions that I give them, which is
an important part of teaching and learning.
What I learned about myself as a future teacher:
This experience has shown me that I am able to create forms of assessment that fit all of my
students, not just some of them, relating to the Assessment standard. It has also given me
experience in creating a fair form of assessment. I learned that it is possible to create
something that works for all of my students, which is something that will be necessary for me
to do when I start teaching. When I was creating this quiz I realized that some questions may
not have made sense to all of the students in the classes, so I had to change them and present
them in a different way. I feel that because of this experience, I have become more competent
at being able to understand my future students and offer them fair assessment as a result. The
ability to recognize that a question may not look the same to every student is an important part
of forming assessments.