C874: MA Mathematics Education (5-12) Teacher Performance Assessment

C874 is the capstone of WGU's M.A. Mathematics Education (Secondary) program: you design, teach and analyze a multi-week mathematics unit.

WGU describes it as a comprehensive, original, research-based curriculum unit designed to meet an identified educational need, providing direct evidence of the candidate's ability to design and implement a multi-week, standards-based unit, assess student learning and reflect on the learning process. It follows the seven Teacher Performance Assessment components.

In secondary mathematics, the hard part is usually showing conceptual learning, not just procedural accuracy. Your goals, tasks and analysis should reveal whether students understand why a method works.

The Seven Components in a Secondary Math Unit

1. Contextual factors: the school, the class and students' prior mathematics, with implications for teaching.
2. Learning goals: standards-aligned goals that include reasoning, not only skills.
3. Assessment: a pre-assessment, formative checks and a post-assessment tied to each goal.
4. Design for instruction: lessons, tasks, representations and technology.
5. Instructional decision-making: changes you made in response to evidence.
6. Analysis of student learning: results for the class, subgroups and individuals.
7. Self-evaluation and reflection: what worked and what you would change.

Designing for Conceptual Understanding

Goals That Include Reasoning

"Students will solve quadratic equations" describes a procedure. A stronger goal adds understanding: "Students will choose an efficient method to solve a quadratic and explain what the solutions mean on the graph."

Assessment Items That Reveal Thinking

Include items that ask students to explain, compare methods or find an error. These show misconceptions that a page of drill can hide.

Analyzing Gains by Goal

Report pre- and post-results per learning goal, not just total scores. A class may improve overall while one goal (often the reasoning goal) stays weak, which is valuable for your reflection.

Choosing a Subgroup

The analysis component asks you to look beyond the whole class. Choose a subgroup that matters for the mathematics, such as students who scored lowest on the pre-assessment, English learners facing heavy word problems, or students receiving accommodations. Report their gains by goal and explain what the pattern suggests.

Representations, Technology and Discourse

Secondary mathematics standards expect students to move between representations: tables, graphs, equations, diagrams and words. Designing lessons around these moves gives you evidence of understanding to analyze later.

Technology can help when it serves a goal. Graphing tools let students test conjectures quickly; dynamic geometry software lets them drag figures and see which properties stay constant. Say in your design why each tool supports a specific goal.

Classroom discourse matters too. Planned questions such as "How do you know?" or "Will that always work?" push students to justify. Recording a few typical student responses during teaching (without names) gives you real material for instructional decision-making and reflection.

Working Through the Components

Where Students Get Stuck

• Weak pre-assessment. If it does not match the post-assessment, gains cannot be measured.
• Grade-level spread. Grades 5-12 is a wide band; make your contextual factors specific to the actual class.
• Subgroup analysis. Choose a meaningful group (for example, students with IEPs or English learners) and explain the result.
• Unit length. Plan enough lessons for real learning to show between assessments.

Study Tips for C874

• Map each standard to a goal and to specific assessment items before teaching.
• Keep a log of daily formative checks and what you changed.
• Use simple charts (pre versus post by goal) in the analysis.
• Reread the rubric before drafting each component.

How We Help with C874

Send the task, rubric, unit plan and any evaluator comments. A mathematics education writer reviews alignment, helps you present data, models component sections or edits your writing for clarity.

GradeEssays is independent of Western Governors University. We never invent student data or teaching experiences and never log in to student portals. You teach the unit and write your own submission under WGU's academic integrity rules. Every order is written from scratch, with free revisions within the scope of your original request.