WGU C887: MA, Mathematics Education (5-9) Teacher Performance Assessment

WGU course C887, the MA, Mathematics Education (5-9) Teacher Performance Assessment, is the capstone of Western Governors University's master's program for aspiring and current middle-grades math teachers. Instead of a timed multiple-choice test, C887 asks you to plan, teach, and analyze a multi-week, standards-based mathematics unit in a real classroom, then document the whole cycle in a formal written submission. It is where everything you studied earlier in the program (middle-grades math content, math pedagogy, assessment design, research foundations) has to show up as evidence that you can actually teach.

Direct answer: You "pass" C887 by treating it as a documentation project, not an essay. Read the current task prompt and its rubric line by line, teach a genuine multi-week unit while collecting artifacts (plans, student work, assessment data) as you go, and then write each of the seven required components so that every rubric aspect is explicitly and specifically addressed. Tight alignment between your standards, goals, assessments, and instruction is what earns a passing evaluation.

Most students reach C887 near the end of the degree, often alongside or just after their demonstration-teaching (clinical) experience, because you need sustained access to a group of students to carry out the unit. It matters because this task is your certification-level proof of teaching competence: the evaluators are looking for a coherent, reflective, ethically sound teacher of mathematics, not a perfect one.

What the C887 performance assessment requires

The WGU Teacher Performance Assessment is built around a single instructional unit broken into seven documented components. Per WGU's official program materials, those components are:

Underlying these components, the course assesses whether you can read a teaching context and accommodate student differences, plan aligned learning segments and assessments, apply differentiated instructional strategies that engage learners, build a supportive learning environment, reflect to improve your practice, and uphold professional ethics and dispositions, including WGU's Teachers College Code of Ethics.

How hard C887 is and how long it takes

C887 is carried at 6 competency units in WGU's middle-grades program guide, and many students describe it as one of the heaviest single tasks in the degree, not because any one section is intellectually difficult but because of the volume, the classroom logistics, and the precision the rubric demands. The writing is manageable; coordinating a multi-week teaching unit, gathering usable student data, and aligning every piece is what takes time.

Realistically, plan around your teaching window. The unit itself typically spans several weeks of instruction, and students often report spending additional weeks assembling and writing the submission before and after teaching. Rather than counting on a fixed number of days, budget for the full arc: setup and planning, the teaching period, then focused writing and revision. Because a single vague or unsupported component can send the whole task back, building in time for at least one revision cycle is wise.

How to prepare for C887

This is a project you manage, so your study tactics look different from an objective assessment:

• Reverse-engineer the rubric first. Before you plan a single lesson, copy the rubric into your own document and turn every "competent" descriptor into a checklist item. Practice testing here means checking each draft section against that list and asking, "Where exactly is the evidence for this aspect?"
• Design backward from the standards. Start with your state or district middle-grades math standards, write the learning goals, then build assessments that measure those goals, and only then design instruction. Evaluators reward alignment; misalignment between goals, assessments, and lessons is the most common reason tasks are returned.
• Collect artifacts in real time. Keep a running folder as you teach: dated lesson plans, blank and completed assessments, samples of student work across performance levels, and short notes on decisions you made. Retrofitting evidence after the unit is far harder than capturing it as you go.
• Use spaced work sessions. Draft one component, set it aside, and return with fresh eyes to check specificity. Reflection and instructional-decision sections especially improve when you revisit them rather than writing them in one pass.
• Write concretely, not generally. Replace "students struggled" with the specific misconception, the data point, and the exact adjustment you made. Specific, cited-to-your-own-evidence writing is what separates a pass from a revision request.
• Lean on your program mentor and course instructor early. Ask them to sanity-check your unit topic and assessment plan before you teach, not after.

Sharpening the assessment-design side of this task pays off directly. If you want a deeper refresher, WGU's D184 Standards-Based Assessment guide covers the alignment thinking C887 rewards, and the classroom-context lens in D090 The School as a Community of Care maps closely to your contextual-factors component. Strong math content confidence also helps; brushing up with the C613 Middle School Mathematics Content Knowledge guide can steady you if the content courses feel distant.

Common mistakes students make in C887

• Weak alignment. Goals, assessments, and lessons that don't clearly track to one another. Evaluators check this directly.
• Thin analysis of student learning. Presenting raw scores without interpreting patterns, subgroups, or what the data means for individual students.
• Generic reflection. Writing "I would manage time better" instead of naming a specific instructional change tied to evidence from your unit.
• Skipping the contextual factors. Treating them as background filler rather than justification for the instructional choices that follow.
• Not addressing every rubric aspect. A component can be well written and still be returned because one required sub-point was never explicitly covered.
• Ethics and privacy slips. Forgetting to follow WGU's dispositions and to protect student identities in your artifacts.

C887 Readiness Checklist

• Can you restate each rubric aspect for all seven components in your own words?
• Can you name the specific middle-grades math standards your unit targets?
• Can you show that each learning goal is measured by at least one aligned assessment?
• Can you point to pre-, formative, and post-assessment data you actually collected?
• Can you describe a concrete mid-unit adjustment you made and the evidence that prompted it?
• Can you interpret your student-learning data, not just report the numbers?
• Can you tie your reflection to specific, actionable changes for future teaching?
• Have you removed or anonymized identifying student information in every artifact?
• Have you re-checked each section against the rubric one final time before submitting?

C887 FAQ

Is C887 an objective assessment or a performance assessment?

It is a performance assessment (PA). There is no proctored multiple-choice exam; you submit a written task documenting a multi-week instructional unit, and WGU evaluators score it against a rubric.

How many competency units is C887 worth?

WGU's middle-grades Mathematics Education program guide lists this Teacher Performance Assessment at 6 competency units, which reflects its scope as a program capstone.

Do I need access to a real classroom?

Yes. The task requires you to actually plan, teach, and assess a multi-week unit with students, which is why it usually aligns with your demonstration-teaching or clinical experience. Confirm your exact placement requirements with your program mentor.

What are the seven components I have to submit?

Contextual factors, learning goals, assessment, design for instruction, instructional decision making, analysis of student learning, and self-evaluation and reflection. Each is scored, so none can be skipped or treated lightly.

Why do tasks like this get sent back for revision?

Most commonly for weak alignment among goals, assessments, and instruction, or for reflection and analysis that are too general. Returns are a normal part of the process; address the evaluator's specific feedback point by point and resubmit.

Where can I find the official course details?

Check the current program page and guidebook on WGU's site, since requirements can change between program versions. You can start from the WGU Mathematics Education (Middle Grades) M.A. page, and browse related study guides on our School of Education hub or the full guide index.