In examination of the results of my work sample unit, there are a few areas I can imporve upon, both in future classes with this particular group of students, and with my general teaching practice as a whole.  As discussed in the previous section of reflections on the teaching process, in future teaching settings I will focus my energies more on flexibility in the implementation of my lesson plans, and also on covering my objectives at the beginning of each lesson and completing an exit slip at the end.  I wil also make more of an emphasis on creating discussion opportunities in my lesson plans, and focus my assignments and projects on a critical analysis of the subject at hand.

When I view the overall data collected for the unit, I can be pleased with the 54% average increase students displayed between pre and post assessments, but there is always room for growth, so there are a few other steps that could be taken with this group to increase their performance in future units of study.  In analyzing the score book for the Egypt unit I can see that the students who ended up with the lower percentages of the unit suffered in two main areas, poor performance on daily assignments, and low scores on final projects.  To help those students out I will be sure to give more of an emphasis on the importance of turning in assignments when they are due.  Additionally, there were a few issues that came up during group work assignments because of student groupings that led to uneven ability levels among the groups.  I am very interested in various methods for grouping students together for projects and in-class activities, and in the future I would like to experiment further with student choice versus assigned groupings when it comes to seating arrangements and team projects.

Another aspect of the teaching process that I will pay more attention to in future units thanks to this work sample, is the score weighting of all the different assignments of the unit.  As it is now, a simple overnight worksheet assignment is worth 10 points, while the two final projects, the biography and tomb construction, are worth 20 a piece.  Given the amount of effort that the students put into those projects I feel that they should have been given more weight in the grading scale.  In the future I would probably reduce the regular homework assignments to 5 points to match the 3 points of the in-class activities of a similar nature.  That would then make the other projects and the final assessment, which are a much higher display of student knowledge, a greater impact on the final grade.