C874 MA, Mathematics Education (5-12) Teacher Performance Assessment, catalog number EDUC 6752, is the six-CU culminating assessment of the secondary mathematics education master's degree at WGU. The catalog scope is an original research-based curriculum unit evidencing design and implementation of a multi-week standards-based unit for grades 5 through 12. The grade band is the distinguishing feature: a unit designed for this range has to be defensible for students whose mathematical maturity varies more than in any other band a teacher performance assessment covers.
Mathematical coherence is the scored quality
Mathematics units fail review for a reason particular to the subject. Mathematics has a logical order that cannot be rearranged for convenience, and a unit that violates that order is incoherent even when every individual lesson is well made. If students are asked to reason about slope before they hold ratio as a relationship rather than a pair of numbers, the sequence has skipped a rung, and everything above that rung becomes procedural imitation. Reviewers look for the rungs.
The second demand is that the unit teaches understanding rather than fluency alone. Fluency matters and rubrics do not despise it, but a master's-level unit that produces students who can execute a procedure and cannot explain when it applies has not evidenced what the degree is for. That usually shows in the tasks: a unit built entirely on exercises with one correct method leaves no room for students to reason, compare approaches or justify a choice, and there is nothing for the analysis of student learning to analyse.
The grades 5 to 12 span adds a third consideration. Whatever grade you teach, your unit has to sit correctly in the progression: what it assumes from earlier years and what it prepares for in later ones. A reviewer reading a middle grades unit expects to see the algebraic future it opens; reading a high school unit, they expect to see the earlier reasoning it depends on. Naming both explicitly is a cheap way to demonstrate that the design was deliberate.
Building the plan from the rubric
The scoring detail sits in your Course of Study rather than the public catalog. Read it before designing, because performance assessment rubrics carry more scored aspects than ordinary course rubrics and the aspects are what decide the shape of the document.
Each aspect is judged independently on a three-point scale and a 2 in every aspect passes the task. Nothing averages. That has a scheduling consequence on a six-CU assessment: the sections written last, typically the analysis of student learning and the reflection, are scored exactly as heavily as the unit plan you spent six weeks on. Reserve real time for them rather than treating them as a write-up.
The word budget, worked. Take twelve scored aspects and a submission running near 7,000 words. Hold 350 for an overview and 300 for a closing frame, leaving 6,350 across twelve aspects, roughly 530 each. Then rebalance toward argument: the research rationale and the analysis of student learning each deserve 800 or more, taken from the class context description, which candidates habitually over-write. A reviewer needs enough context to judge your decisions and nothing beyond that.
Write the summative assessment first, before the lesson sequence exists. In mathematics this is especially clarifying, because the moment you write a task that requires justification rather than execution, the lessons that must precede it become obvious.
A structure that fits a secondary mathematics unit
Follow the task directions where they set a format. Where they leave room, this arrangement keeps mathematical progression visible and puts each scored aspect where a reviewer expects it.
| Section | What belongs in it | How it gets scored |
|---|---|---|
| Context | The class, prior mathematical experience, and what earlier content students actually hold | Scored for how the design responds to it, not for length |
| Progression placement | What the unit assumes from earlier grades and what it prepares for later | Demonstrates deliberate design and prevents sequence errors |
| Standards and goals | Standards addressed, with the mathematical understanding stated as understanding | Scored for alignment and for goals that can be assessed |
| Research rationale | Mathematics education research supporting the tasks and representations chosen | Scored where research-based design is named |
| Assessment plan | Summative and formative measures with the actual tasks and scoring criteria | Scored for whether the tasks require the reasoning the unit taught |
| Lesson sequence | Each lesson with its mathematical purpose, the representations used, and the rung it adds | Scored for coherence and for progression that does not skip |
| Differentiation | Specific adjustments for named needs, including students holding gaps from earlier grades | Scored for specificity, which in mathematics means naming the prerequisite gap |
| Analysis and reflection | What the data showed, what you would change, and the reasoning behind the change | Scored heavily and written last, which is why it is the usual return point |
Include at least one task with more than one legitimate approach. It gives students something to justify, gives your formative assessment something to reveal, and gives the analysis section genuine material. Units built only on single-method exercises produce analysis sections with nothing to say.
Evidence craft in a mathematics teaching assessment
Reviewers want proof of design reasoning, of implementation and of honest evaluation. Each has its own evidence standard.
- Cite mathematics education research specifically. Work on representations, on productive struggle and on student reasoning in the topic you chose is far stronger than general instructional literature.
- Name the standards precisely and show the alignment task by task rather than declaring it once.
- Include the tasks themselves. A reviewer cannot judge whether an assessment demands reasoning without seeing the item.
- Present student learning data with distribution visible, including the students who did not reach the goal.
- Anonymise all student references, including work samples and quoted student explanations.
- Show your own mathematics correctly everywhere. An error in the content of a mathematics teaching assessment is more damaging than anywhere else on the plan.
- Keep quotation minimal; standards text is widely reproduced and WGU runs submissions through a similarity check.
The most persuasive reflections trace a specific misconception through the data. Noticing that a third of the class applied a procedure correctly in one representation and failed in another, then explaining what that reveals about their understanding, is the analysis reviewers are hoping to find and rarely do.
What separates Competent from a return
WGU records work as Competent or Not Competent, with no letter grades and no ordinary grade point average. Because each aspect is scored alone, returns on a six-CU assessment name specific sections rather than the whole document.
- Every scored aspect has a heading using the rubric's own wording.
- Every lesson names the mathematical purpose it serves in the progression.
- Every assessment task requires the reasoning the unit was built to develop.
- Every differentiation decision names a specific prerequisite gap or learner need.
- Every claim about student learning points to data included in the submission.
- Every reflection point names a change and the evidence behind it.
Performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so a return is usually a rewriting task rather than a reteaching one. The cost is calendar, and with six-month flat-rate terms, a culminating assessment that returns twice can consume the term intended to complete the degree.
Our boundary is fixed. We help you design the unit, structure the document and write to each scored aspect. We do not teach your lessons, produce student work, fabricate assessment data or write about students we have not met. Proctored assessments elsewhere on your plan remain yours to sit, and we never ask for portal credentials.
Six mistakes candidates make in C874
- Skipping a rung in the progression. Mathematics has a logical order, and a unit that assumes an understanding students do not hold produces imitation rather than learning.
- Building only single-method tasks. They leave nothing for students to justify and nothing for your analysis section to examine.
- Assessing fluency and claiming understanding. The mismatch between goal and measure is the single most visible incoherence in a mathematics unit.
- Writing context at length. Reviewers need enough to judge your decisions; extra pages here cost words the analysis section needed.
- Generic differentiation. In mathematics the useful version names the missing prerequisite and the specific bridge you built for it.
- Leaving analysis and reflection to the final week. They are scored as heavily as everything else and they are where hurried submissions lose aspects.
How support works on this course
Send your Course of Study for C874 with the rubric and the task directions. What comes back is a progression check that finds the missing rung before your students do, an assessment review that tests whether your tasks demand reasoning or only execution, a research rationale drawn from mathematics education literature, and an aspect-mapped document plan that protects word budget for analysis and reflection.
The teaching and the data stay yours entirely. What we contribute is the design scrutiny that catches structural problems while they are still cheap to fix, which on a six-CU culminating assessment is worth more than any amount of help with the writing afterwards.
Questions candidates ask about C874
Is C874 the same course as EDUC 6752?
How is C874 different from the 5-9 version?
Can you write the unit or supply student data?
Secondary mathematics unit missing a rung?
Send your Course of Study and rubric. You get a progression check, an assessment review for reasoning demand, a mathematics-specific rationale, and an aspect-mapped plan.
Where C874 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.