Teacher educators are tasked with defining and assessing the learning of pre-service teachers. These seemingly straightforward tasks are complicated by the varied definitions of teacher learning and lack of consensus regarding the most effective way to assess that learning. Increasingly, teacher educators turn to the Interstate New Teacher Assessment Support Consortium (INTASC) standards to define the knowledge, dispositions, and performances that constitute teacher learning. Teacher Work Samples (TWSs) hold promise as a set of documents that allow teacher educators to assess pre-service teachers’ learning in terms of the INTASC standards.
This study examined the teacher learning made visible in pre-service English teachers’ initial work samples. TWSs from five undergraduate pre-service teachers were collected and analyzed. Because these were initial work samples, as opposed to the more practiced work samples studied elsewhere, the data was aggregated to create a picture across the participants. First analyzed inductively, the data was then compared to the INTASC principles and standards to determine which were evidenced.
Four findings emerged from this examination of pre-service English teachers’ initial work samples. First, the teacher learning made visible closely resembled the frameworks in the general teacher education literature. Second, creating a teacher work sample provided pre-service teachers an opportunity to make visible the INTASC principles and standards, especially the knowledge standards. Third, the teacher work samples did not illustrate the theoretical understanding in the INTASC principles. Fourth, the participants did not make apparent the knowledge, dispositions, or performance standards necessary to support students in taking responsibility for their own learning.
