INTASC+Principle+2


 * __Portfolio Reflection Artifact #2: Conference Response to the topic “Zone of Proximal Development __**




 * Description of Artifact: ** The artifact is a response to a conference discussion about Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development theory. After reading the instructors’ weekly blog and reading Popham’s Chapter 12 (2011), I described a formal assessment that I may use to determine whether or not my teaching falls within the zone of proximal development (Appendix D). I give concrete examples showing how I would indicate if I were meeting the teaching goals. The artifact is a 5 week learning progression approach to formative assessment.


 * ITASC Principle #8: ** **Assessment. ** The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner.


 * Explanation of How Artifact Demonstrates Achievement of Principles: **This artifact demonstrates how learning progression can be used to monitor students learning through building blocks and subskills a student needs to master before they move to the next learning objective. This learning progression outlines how students will be assessed in areas of technology and information literacy. It describes each phase in which a student learns a particular skill and how that skill will be formatively assessed. The learning progression approach details what enabling knowledge a student must demonstrate and the assessment tool that will be used to make formative decisions on student learning.


 * Description of how the completion of this artifact has affected your understanding of teaching and learning, and/or how it may contribute to your effective teaching/learning in the future. **

I did not connect Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development to real world teaching situations with much clarity until I learning about the learning progression approach. I have more insight on how formative assessment can be utilized throughout a lesson unit. I understand more about how to make decisions based on criteria set prior to instruction. It allows me, the teacher, to make instructional adjustments based on a student zone of proximal development. I also provides evidence based decisions that I can share with student, parents, and other teachers that will help make better judgment’s about classroom instruction strategies.


 * Strengths: **My strengths in this area is my content knowledge and my ability to use technology create a learning progression that can identity students’ zone of proximal development. I also feel strong in my understanding of how to create a learning progression that will show evidence of student learning.


 * Areas for Improvement: **My lack of experience in using the learning progression approach to formative assessment needs to be addressed. I have more work to do in terms of conducting research to see if the learning progression approach will work in real-time classroom setting. I have not had a chance to make those adjustments to learning based on a learning progression approach. This will be the only way I can truly get a full comprehension on how to utilize Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development theory.

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