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Work Sample OverviewMaster of Arts in Teaching

Willamette University MAT students will be responsible for preparing two work samples, each a unit of related lessons that should be part of the school's regular curriculum. One work sample will be completed during the November practicum experience and one work sample will be completed during spring semester student teaching, Each of the two work samples must be two to five weeks long and include student goals and objectives, lesson plans, and pre- and post-assessments of students' performance, as well as analyses of their learning gains. These work samples fulfill a requirement of Oregon's Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC) regulations for licensure.

  1. Title Page and Table of Contents

    Numbered pages and tabs are suggested to make the work sample reader friendly.

  2. School and Classroom Demographic and Descriptive Information

    Include information about the students' prior learning background in this curriculum area, including learners with special needs, TAG, ESOL, and learners from diverse cultural and social backgrounds. Include information about school benchmark progress in the curriculum area if available.

  3. Rationale

    Why is this important for students to learn? How does it fit into state and district curriculum requirements and your goals?

  4. Student Developmental Needs

    How will you design instruction to address the students' developmental needs?

  5. Content Standards and Benchmarks

    What broad concepts should students attain? How should they apply new knowledge and skills?

  6. Learning Objectives

    What are the specific, observable learning outcomes for students? (These are the daily lesson plan objectives.) What should students be able to do at the conclusion of the lesson?

  7. Assessment Plan

    Explain the plan for assessing students' achievement of the objectives. Include an explanation of how the plan relates to the goals, objectives, and learning philosophy. Also include how you will grade, record and compile the various types of formative/summative and cognitive/affective assessments used in your work sample.

  8. Integrated Disciplines

    How will you integrate other subject areas and/or process skills within your unit? (For example, how will you use reading and writing as a learning tool?)

  9. Pre-Assessment

    How will you determine what students know or what they can do before the unit, in relation to your objectives? Options include, but are not limited to the use of recorded observations, checklists, rating scales, oral, written or performance tests. Include how you will "score" the pre-assessment. Results (ungraded) will be compared with the post-assessment to determine students' learning gains.

  10. Weekly Lesson Plans

    A weekly calendar that outlines a logical progression of learning.

  11. Daily Lesson Plans

    (numbered by day, with time estimates for each component)
    1. State Standard, Benchmark(s) and Objectives
    2. Anticipatory Set - How will you prepare students for the lesson, relate to prior learning and stimulate interest?
    3. Materials List & Resources - Include handouts, overheads (paper copy only) lecture notes, or any other materials needed to teach the lesson.
    4. Instructional Strategies - What type of instructional strategies will you use?
    5. Learning activities - This requires a detailed plan for how each activity will be organized. Include a variety of types of activities and differentiation if appropriate.
    6. Management Concerns Addressed - Include plans for transitions, directions, grouping structures, setting expectations, etc.
    7. Monitoring - What questions will you ask? What methods will you use to actively engage students? To determine whether they understand? Monitor their progress?
    8. Closure - How will students summarize and/or review what they have learned?
    9. Assessment - How will you assess whether students have attained the objectives during your lesson? How will you assess whether students have attained the objectives at the end of the unit? (Include assessment tools.)
    10. Lesson evaluation - What were strengths of the lesson? What did the students learn? How do you know that? What would you do differently next time?
    11. Adaptations - specific adaptations that need daily planning to meet special needs.

  12. Adaptations

    1. Include content specific examples of methods you will use to adapt your learning activities and assessment tools for students with different learning styles and needs. Consider special populations/cultural components/socio-economic factors.
    2. Describe how your planned activities are sensitive to the socio-economic and cultural attributes of your student population.

  13. Post-Assessment

    How will you determine if individual students have satisfactorily met your goals (content standards) and objectives? How will you decide what learning gains, if any, they have made in relation to the pre-assessment? Be sure to set standards which are clear to students from the beginning of the unit. Use a variety of assessments, which may include observation; checklists; rating scales; oral, written, or performance assessments; projects; portfolios; performances; etc.

  14. Presentation of Assessment Data

    How will you present results of your pre- and post-assessments in a clear form? You might record individual students' pre- and post-test results in rank order on a chart. Class results could be summarized in a bar graph or pie chart indicating percentages achieving different levels. Quartiles are an option that might be considered for data presentation.

  15. Interpretation of Results

    How will you analyze student performance in relation to your objectives? How did they do as a class? As individuals? For those who do not meet your expectations, how will you explore the reasons?

  16. Use of Assessment Data for Students, Parents and Self-Evaluation

    1. Students - How will you proceed with your students, based on your interpretations of results? What feedback will you give them?
    2. Parents - How will you inform parents about the performance of their children?
    3. Self-evaluation - Describe your plans for evaluating the success of your teaching. Include how you will utilize classroom observations, student feedback, student assessment components (including data analysis), and self-evaluation tools.