Teacher Work Samples

Most of these materials were developed by Tennessee teachers during summer workshops and in teacher preparation programs. Simply providing design tools and valuable ideas and strategies for implementing STEM curriculum, instruction, and assessments does not automatically guarantee that these materials will be fully utilized by teachers. For this reason, STEMresources.com will become a dynamic place where teachers can submit new materials that can be within Tennessee’s STEM Education learning community.

Lessons

STEMResources contains ideas, instructions, and templates for building more than a dozen different Lesson Builders. The Work Samples developed from these Lesson Builders target key concepts and are referenced to the Tennessee Science and mathematics curriculum frameworks. Most lessons include both teacher and student materials and are in PowerPoint Format. Any lesson can be downloaded and adapted to suit a teacher’s particular purpose.

Performance Assessments

These Work Samples offer engaging and authentic ideas for formative assessment based on the Tennessee Standards. All of them were developed using the Performance Assessment Builder and the accompanying tool for creating a scoring rubric.

Content Clarifications

Content Clarifications are most helpful during instructional pre-planning stage. A Content Clarification is a process for investigating the critical components ofstandards-based instruction: the content knowledge base and information related to both learning and teaching. These Content Clarifications were developed with a research tool designed to capture relevant information from online versions of the state and national standards documents.

Trade Book Reviews

Trade books, though published for a general readership and not specifically for the classroom, are used by STEM teachers to support rich units of instruction. The Trade Book Reviews in this collection were based on the National Science Teachers Association Outstanding Trade Book selections. They include the key science concepts found in a particular trade book and an accompanying standards-based lesson.

Test-Item Analyses

The Test Item Analysis Tool uses released standardized test items as thestarting points for designing standards-based instruction. The Test Item Analysis process enables a teacher to ensurea careful alignment among standards, assessment, instruction, and student learning. The Test Item Analysis Work Samples integrate released test items, Content Clarifications, an engaging standards-based lesson with an accompanying formative assessment.

Units

These Units are designed as complete 5E Learning Cycles. They were among the first Teacher Work Samples to have been built using the STEM Resource tools, specifically the Unit Builder. You may discover that they do not have the same look and feel that is found in the new Lesson Builders. However, you will find that the lesson ideas and performance assessments they contain are still valuable resources for teachers.