NDE1041: NEPF Instructional Practice/ Evaluator Microcredential 5/5: IP Standard 5

This microcredental focuses on the implementation of the NEPF Teacher Professional Responsibilities Standard 5 - Assessment is Integrated into Instruction. Assessment has two fundamental functions. The first is to provide information on students’ current levels of achievement. Such assessments serve a summative function; they sum up what students have learned after a more or less extended sequence of teaching and learning, for example, at the end of a unit which may last several weeks, at the end of a quarter, or annually. The second purpose of assessment is to inform what students and teachers do day-by-day to ensure that students make progress toward desired outcomes. Assessment for this purpose serves a formative function and occurs when teachers engage in a continual “taking stock” of learning by paying close, first-hand attention to specific aspects of students’ developing understanding and skills as teaching and learning is taking place in real time (Erickson, 2007). Standard 5 addresses how teachers effectively integrate gathering and using evidence of learning into on-going instruction. Standard 5 requires teachers to plan on-going learning opportunities based on evidence of all students’ current learning status, align assessment opportunities with learning goals and performance criteria, structure opportunities to generate evidence of learning during the lesson of all students, and adapt their actions based on evidence generated in the lesson for all students. Administrators must reinforce the professional growth of their teachers by providing measurable feedback and supporting teacher reflection and growth.