This blog post was co-authored by Dr. Stephanie Rosch and Chadwick Anderson. Student Agency. It’s a buzz word heard everywhere educators gather these days and rightly so. Education is not a thing to be done to students, it’s a thing to be done with students. Creating opportunities for students to own their individual learning trajectories […]
CONTINUE READINGStudents (practicing classroom teachers) in the Advanced Assessment Literacy Specialization – Masters of Science in Advanced Teaching Practices – share their thoughts on the issue of time. Their professor posed these questions: How do you make time for the effective use of formative assessment for learning? Why do you? How can you convince other teachers that […]
CONTINUE READINGDeveloping and understanding one’s driving philosophies, or one’s mindset, is the most important element toward achieving great results. My driving philosophy as an educator is to constantly work toward maximizing learning for all my students. One of the key concepts that impacts successful learning is how I frame assessments in my classroom. Assessments are sometimes […]
CONTINUE READINGFormative assessment, the integration of assessment with instruction or “assessment for learning,” has the potential to yield substantial learning gains (Black & Wiliam, 1998). Researchers often summarize the impact of programs and practices in terms of an effect size that measures the difference between the treatment and control groups. In this case, effect sizes would […]
CONTINUE READINGIn The Perfect Assessment System by Rick Stiggins, the author states that “we must embrace a new role for students…we must enlist students as full partners in the assessment process.” (2017) For Tamara Walker, a classroom educator in Washington State and collaborator on this blog post, partnering with her students happens daily. For Avner, a […]
CONTINUE READINGNot too many English teachers can say that magical moments occur while grading essays; yet, one of my most magical teaching moments occurred while I sat reading through students’ unit reflections this past weekend, and assessment literacy is to thank for this moment of sheer educator bliss. Before I explain this coveted unicorn teaching moment, […]
CONTINUE READINGI teach assessment literacy in a graduate program (Masters of Science in Advanced Teaching Practices) designed specifically for classroom teachers to gain assessment knowledge and performance skills. It sounds pretty straight forward. The learning outcomes (also known as learning targets or goals) are clear–or at least I think they are! These are to gain knowledge, […]
CONTINUE READINGAs practicing classroom teachers, we discuss differentiating instruction to meet the needs of each unique learner, but when was the last time you had a conversation about differentiating assessment? Stop. Think for a minute about that concept. What does differentiating assessment mean for you and for your students? The concept came up in a course […]
CONTINUE READINGSo we all know we need to use data to drive instruction in our classrooms, but what exactly does that look like? For most of us, when we hear the word “data” we immediately picture long and detailed reports, numbers written in small print and the overwhelming task of trying to make sense of it […]
CONTINUE READINGCatherine Crenshaw, 4th Grade Teacher, Beaverton, Oregon. Every year, I have that one student who for some reason stands out instantly from all the rest. After 22 years as an elementary general education teacher, I’ve not only come to expect this, I start looking for that child immediately. This year, when all the other third […]
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