General Procedures for the Western Teacher Work Sample (WTWS)*
The Candidate’s Assignment
The WTWS contains seven teaching components identified by research and best practice as
fundamental to improving student learning. Each component is followed by a definition, the
Tasks, a Prompt, and a Rubric that defines three possible levels of performance on the
component. The Tasks and Rubrics will be used to evaluate your WTWS. The Prompts (or
directions) help you document the extent to which you have met each standard. You are
required to teach a comprehensive unit. Before you teach the unit, you will describe contextual
factors, identify learning objectives and benchmarks based on the Illinois Learning Standards,
create an assessment plan designed to measure student performance before (pre-assessment),
during (formative assessment) and after (post-assessment), and plan your instruction. After you
teach the unit, you will analyze student learning and then reflect upon and evaluate your
teaching as related to student learning.
Suggestions for the Candidate to Get Started
1. Start as early as possible!
2. Carefully and completely read the WTWS prompts (directions) and scoring rubrics.
3. Meet with your cooperating teacher immediately to plan the topic/goals and the dates of
your unit.
4. Develop, with your cooperating teacher, a workable schedule for administering your preand post-assessments.
5. Begin a journal now. A journal will be useful for recording valuable successes, failures,
frustrations, surprises, insights, and changes that you will use later.
6. Keep samples of student work such as the entire class set of pre- and post-assessments and
select samples of student work. You will present and discuss this work in the Analysis and
Interpretation of Student Learning and Performance section.
7. Remember to remove students’ names from all work you include in the WTWS.
8. Once you complete writing a section, plan to revisit it periodically as needed.
Suggested Implementation Schedule
(Can be modified for your length of student teaching with permission of your WIU professor)
Week # 1:
• Meet with your cooperating teacher to discuss the WTWS schedule and requirements
• Complete the Contextual Factors section
By the end of the first ¼ of your placement:
• Plan your unit with assistance from your cooperating teacher
• Complete the Learning Objectives and Benchmarks and Assessment Plan sections
• Give the pre-assessment to your students (make a copy of student papers or work)
• Analyze pre-assessment data and us results to complete Design for Instruction section
By the end of the third ¼ of your placement:
• Teach the unit
• Collect student work, as needed
• Take notes for the Instructional Decision-Making section
By the end of your placement:
• Give post-assessment
• Analyze post assessment results
• Complete the rest of the WTWS
Reminders for Submission of the Finished WTWS
1. Complete the signature page that includes (a) your identifying information and (b) the
signatures of you and your mentor teacher. Be certain to get all necessary signatures!
2. Provide a Table of Contents that lists the sections and attachments in your WTWS
document with page numbers, if possible.
3. Charts, graphs and assessment instruments are required as part of the WTWS document.
You may also want to provide other attachments, such as student work. However, you
should be very selective and make sure your attachments provide clear, concise evidence or
your performance related to WTWS standards and your students’ learning progress.
4. You have some flexibility of length of your components, but your written narrative
(excluding charts, graphs, attachments and references) should be clear and concise. Your
narrative should be double-spaced in 12-point font, with 1-inch margins.
5. If you refer to another person’s ideas or material in your narrative, cite these references in a
separate section at the end of your narrative titled References and Credits. The American
Psychological Association (APA) style is the recommended format and is available online at
http://www.apa.org
6. Assure anonymity of student in your class. Do not include any student, teacher, school, or
community names in any part of your WTWS. Use fictitious names and note this
somewhere in your document.
Duties and Responsibilities for the Western Teacher Work Sample
(WTWS)
Unit
1.
Place all documentation for the WTWS on the CPEP website and notify all involved
individuals where they can locate all WTWS documents.
2.
Except for candidates in Elementary Education, Early Childhood, Science, and English,
notify student teachers that they will be expected to complete and submit a WTWS as
one of their assignments during student teaching. The listed departments will notify
their majors directly.
3.
Provide departments with a list of their majors and their assigned university supervisor.
4.
After October 1st, 2009, provide instructions to faculty scorers about how to score the
WTWS in WEPPAS, the teacher education web-based assessment system.
5.
Assist all faculty scorers with any questions they have about the WTWS scoring process.
Major Department and Assigned Departmental Faculty WTWS Scorer
1.
Assign one or more departmental faculty members the responsibility to score candidate
work samples and which candidate(s) they will assist and evaluate.
2.
Let candidates know which faculty member will be their assigned WTWS evaluator.
3.
If desired, provide guidelines about how candidates should interact with faculty and
how the teacher work sample should be submitted (electronically or via snail mail).
4.
Offer support to the candidate(s) through regular, frequent communication throughout
the semester.
5.
Score each WTWS using the unit scoring rubric available on WEPPAS. Elementary
Education, Early Childhood, Science, and English will also have SPA-specific
requirements in addition to the Unit rubric.
Student Teaching Supervisor
1.
Educate cooperating teachers about the University expectation that all student teachers
complete a WTWS. Provide them with a link to the website with the WTWS documents.
Answer any questions they might have.
2.
Encourage candidates to communicate regularly and frequently with the WIU professor
assigned to evaluate their work sample.
3.
Encourage candidates to communicate regularly and frequently with their cooperating
teacher.
4.
Assist candidates who encounter problems while completing their WTWS. If necessary,
help those candidates explain those problems to their WIU professor.
*
Adapted from The University of Northern Iowa Teacher Work Sample for the Student Teaching Level
Performance Prompt, Teaching Process Standards, and Scoring Rubrics, January 2007, and General
Advice, a document created by Dr. Nick Pace, Coordinator, and his students M. Jones, B.
Malooly, B. Schipper, and M. Thompson.