There's plenty of information available on assessment; often about how teachers can use data more effectively and why the newest policies and tests will improve learning outcomes. But rarely does this take into account the foundations of best practice in assessment. John Hattie, known for his
Our Overreliance on Achievement Testing How many of you think that we are overtesting our youth? That’s been the cry from family members to teachers to administrators over the last umpteen years. It comes with the growing disapproval of high-stakes achievement testing, the prominent educational paradigm
The "zero debate" is alive and well despite the compelling information that leading educational thinkers like Tom Guskey, Doug Reeves, and Grant Wiggins have shared about the lack of accuracy that is the end product of this practice. More recently my friend and colleague Tom Schimmer
We’re keeping close tabs on national news around the Every Student Succeeds Act as well as ESSA news from the eight most populous states in the union: CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, and GA. Our hope is that these brief updates will help
We’re keeping close tabs on national news around the Every Student Succeeds Act as well as ESSA news from the eight most populous states in the union: CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, and GA. Our hope is that these brief updates will help
Now that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been signed into law, we’re keeping close tabs on national ESSA news as well as ESSA news from the eight most populous states in the union: CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, and GA. Our
Now that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been signed into law, we’re keeping close tabs on national ESSA-related news as well as ESSA news from the eight most populous states in the union: CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, and GA. Our
Whatever you call it: Holistic, balanced, or comprehensive, there’s more to assessment than standardized testing. With the disturbance in the forces of assessment we have unprecedented opportunities to return assessment to its roots: Back to the local level, inside the school, within the classroom, planned
As a successful teacher, you keep student achievement at the forefront of your work. Although you are faced with the vastly different learning styles of your highly diverse students, your goal is to design your classroom environment and instruction in a manner that allows for
Writing a Common Formative Assessment (CFA) is a worthwhile process—but it is also hard work and time intensive. At the end of the design process, your team may ask themselves, “Now what?” Teams want more use out of an assessment, not just the typical “template-driven” PLC