Renaissance Teacher Work Samples Consortium

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About Renaissance Teacher Work Samples (RTWS)

Teacher work samples required of teacher candidates in Renaissance TWS Group member institutions may have some variation in specific instructions for teaching tasks and scoring processes. However, all will resemble the set of teaching tasks and rubrics developed by the Renaissance Partnership supported by the Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Program from 1999 to 2005. Borrowing teacher work sample methodology concepts developed by the late Del Schalock and colleagues at Western Oregon University, the members of the Renaissance Partnership designed their teacher work sample around seven teaching processes they believed were critical to producing improved P-12 student learning. These were:

• Use of student and classroom context to design instruction
• Use of instructional unit learning goals that addressed local and state content standards
• Use of pre-post and formative assessment to guide instruction and measure and report learning results
• Design of instruction for all students that addressed unit learning goals and were aligned with concepts and processes assessed
• Instructional decision making based on continuous formative assessment
• Analysis and reporting of learning for all students and significant groups
• Reflection and evaluation of teaching and learning

To facilitate the development and evaluation of common processes and materials, nine of the eleven members of the Renaissance Partners used the Renaissance Teacher Work Sample through the end of the Title II Project in 2005. Several of the member universities have made some modifications of the original Renaissance Teacher Work Sample to meet local needs and certification requirements; however, all continue to address the key teaching processes and concepts that became the focus of the Renaissance Partnership. The original Renaissance Teacher Work Sample teaching tasks, prompts, scoring rubric, scoring guide and exemplars (candidate teaching exhibits) are presented in TWS Resources and TWS Exemplars. Additional TWS resources and exemplary materials can be found on Renaissance TWS Group member web sites for which direct links are provided from this web site.