Engaging the Evaluation of the Student Teaching Assessment

The primary purpose of the STOT assessment is to assess and evaluate the teacher candidate in several areas of performance, in a classroom setting while they are the primary teacher.  The STOT was created by the North Dakota Common Metric to ensure that teacher candidates were receiving accurate, appropriate, and relevant training in their teacher preparation program but also that the candidate is prepared and ready to be a teacher in the classroom.  I feel this form has two purposes: first it is to guide the candidate as to what standards they are doing well in and what they need to work on in the classroom; and also to aide the Supervisor and Cooperating Teacher a way to provide needed feedback to the teacher candidate. This form’s primary focus is aimed to give the candidate the necessary feedback as to what is needed to be worked on during their student teaching journey going forward.  This form covers ten standards that are necessary for a candidate to be proficient in to become a classroom teacher.  These standards that are assessed are:  Learner development, learning differences, learning environments, content knowledge, applications of content, assessment, planning for instruction, instructional strategies, professional learning and ethical practices, and leadership and collaboration.  The teacher candidate will use the information that they receive from these assessments as things to work on to improve in their practice of teaching.  This tool is a “study guide” per se, for use to help a candidate understand what skills need to be improved upon and also areas where they are doing well.  

This assessment can be used as a formative assessment very easily.  A supervisor or cooperating teacher could pick one or two standards and use those pages to review a candidate informally one day in the class.  It can also be used to sit down and talk about the steps that could be taken in order to show what is needed to be proficient in a standard.  The form can also be used as a summative assessment by a supervisor or cooperating teacher to evaluate how the candidate is performing while performing a particular lesson that is being observed formally.

As a teacher candidate, I can use this assessment to inform and guide my learning during my student teaching as using these assessments as study guides to help me

improve my teaching.  My goal is to be the best teacher that I can be. I feel that the best way to improve is to watch other teachers and to ask for input on how to improve an area that isn’t working quite as well as you would like it to work.  The limitations to this assessment in regards to my performance are that it is a small snapshot of my teaching.  It is one lesson, one day.  Things happen that are not seen by the evaluator that could cause problems with the lesson or students.  However, that is part of teaching so you do your best and talk about it afterwards.  This assessment can not measure the relationships that you have formed with these students, families and teammates.  Assessments are a necessary tool that can be used to help a teacher improve, grow, and develop in their teaching practice.  

procedure, or daily questions during whole or small group instruction.  These assessments can be written down in a notebook or a clipboard and are student and subject specific.  Formative assessments are extremely important to a teacher while they are planning lessons so that they know how to tailor their instruction.  Does a subject matter need to be retaught?  Can something be skipped because the students know the material?  Is the material too difficult for a particular group of students and they will need small group work?  How and when there needs to be differentiation in instruction. Informal formative assessments are: exit tickets, question and answers during class time, checklists, quizzes, rubrics, homework or graded writing.  Examples of formal formative assessments would be: Unit tests,  MCA, MAP and ORF tests. 

Section 2

As a new teacher, what I find most appealing is the idea of watching and assessing how each student connects with other students, understanding how they learn, and express themselves, and the interconnectedness of the whole student. I believe that the kidwatching assessment will afford me the opportunity of assessing a student’s language both academically and conversationally, I will be able to learn more about the student as a whole person, understand how the student learns, and to find out what makes the student shine.  The two biggest limitations are time and how to use the information.  There are only so many hours in the school day and most of those hours teachers are so busy teaching, planning, and helping our students.  Sometimes it is difficult to fit this in each day.  I sometimes have to remember to do this on the playground, in the hallway, or during lunch groups as well as during class time.  How to use the data can sometimes be a limitation.  I have all of these ideas in my head as to how to use it but can't always get to the ideas because I am so busy with other things.  I need to make it a priority.  

My definition of a formative assessment is an evaluation that a teacher does in her class to see if her students are understanding a particular idea.  This can be done as simply as walking around and talking with a student, listening to a conversation they are having with another student, checking exit tickets, helping a student on a particular problem or