January represents the beginning of a new calendar year; however, it is also the beginning of the second semester of the school year for students. The beginning of the second semester is a great time to “take the pulse” of your students' mathematical thinking and
The negative effects from teaching during COVID-19 are a hot topic. While there have been positives resulting from the pandemic—especially the need to value and teach self-regulation and to have teachers engage in higher levels of release of responsibility (Hattie 2021)—there are many students who have failed to thrive, been denied access to technology, and been absent and not engaged. While these results occur also in regular schooling, too, COVID-19 spotlights the need to
From the series: Developing Students’ Ownership of Learning—from a Distance, too! Check out Posts #1 and #2. Let’s continue our journey to developing assessment-capable, visible learners. At this point, students know what they are supposed to be learning, what success looks like, and how they can monitor their progress. The next
From the series: Developing Students’ Ownership of Learning—from a Distance, too! Check out Post #1 here. This week we’re back and ready to focus on a new aspect of developing assessment-capable, visible learners. As you probably remember, we’re interested in helping students take responsibility for their learning
As educators, we spend each day talking with our students, asking questions, listening to their responses, observing their work, and giving feedback. At the end of more than seven hours of interactions with 24 students, I have made countless mental notes: Nivek knows letter sounds
More than twenty years after Dr. Carol Dweck initiated her groundbreaking research on the power of mindsets, her findings have influenced a growing conversation about resilience, perseverance, and grit as determinants of student success. Her derivatives of attribution theory, growth mindset versus fixed mindset, have
When wanting to know how much and how well our children are learning in school, critical measures of success are usually based solely on achievement data. Results from standardized tests are examined along with results from previous years (and neighboring schools, districts, and states/provinces) in