Choice Lit Topic: Assessment Tools
Making sense of the enormous amount of student data in any classroom or school is probably the biggest challenge we face individually and in our school communities. Here you’ll find everything from one-page templates created by teachers for use in their classrooms to videos of staff teams poring over large data sets. We don’t have all the answers, but we do provide tools to help you ask better questions as you evaluate students and talk about assessments with your colleagues.
Results
Spring Slump
Here we are in the longest stretch of no breaks in the school year, and I feel as though I have hit a brick wall. I teach in a special...
Coaching for the Test
I would encourage anyone nearing testing season to read aloud Testing Miss Malarkey by Judy Finchler with colleagues. Simultaneous laughs and groans erupt at this portrayal of our society's relationship with testing....
Spring Reading Interviews (TEMPLATE)
We believe strongly that students should live authentic lives as readers in our classrooms. Following each interview, we want to put the information together for ourselves. We start by asking...
Coaching Monkey
As a kid, Curious George was my hero. Sometimes I had to cover my eyes when he was about to get into trouble, but I knew in the end he'd...
Transitioning to Guide on the Side: Facilitating Collaborative Scoring
"I want to move as much of my professional development from sage on the stage to guide on the side," I wrote as my goal for the coming year. For...
The Power of Checklists in Primary Literacy Workshops
We had the pleasure of hearing Atul Gawande speak recently at a local event. He is a bestselling author and surgeon who writes about how to get things right. He...
Language Patterns: Reflecting with Transcripts and Wordle
When a colleague shared the word cloud generator at www.wordle.net with me, I was intrigued. I pasted quotes, poems, lyrics and bios into the generator, and found an entirely new way of...
Uncovering Reading Behaviors
It's "Reading Opportunity" time in Katie Doherty's sixth-grade classroom. As resident researcher, I'm still getting to know the kids, the routines, and the special culture of the school and classroom....
Balancing Assessments Through Better Classroom Notes
Marie Clay reminds us, "The one closest to the classroom experience is in a unique position to see and communicate a reliable and valid instructional perspective of the child." In...
Seven Minutes of Listening
Four-year-old Isabele pulled out the large alphabet puzzle, a big 2' by 3' wooden one that so many preschool and primary classrooms have. With her right hand holding the letter...
Assessment Conferences: Listening to and Learning from Our Students
As we work with teachers on conferring during reading workshops, we often rely on Lucy Calkin's instructional model for one-on-one conferences: research, decide and teach. Recently in our coaching, we...
Guiding Readers in Kindergarten: A Planning and Assessment Template
"Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty." In Guided Reading: Good First Teaching...
Draft Stamps: Moving Learners at All Levels Forward
One of our first discoveries as administrators was that our title authorized our membership on countless committees. We never knew so many committees could exist! Our past employment as consultants...
It’s Not the Assessment — It’s How You Use It
Clare's mother always used to tell her, "It's not what you say that is the problem, it's how you say it!" This same thought rings through our heads as we...
Assessment Beyond Levels: The Reading Grid
Assessment systems that work are difficult to find. I've been teaching for just over 20 years now, and I'm quite sure I've tried nearly that many systems for organizing assessment...
Making Data Analysis a Motivating and Worthwhile Process
Over the past few years we have met with different groups of teachers to analyze student data. These meetings have pushed us to think about strategies for facilitating data meetings...
Understanding Students in Intervention Programs
Using data to make wise decisions about students who are struggling is one of the most important tasks in schools. In one district we worked with, the data team wanted...
Sharing Data with Families at Parent/Teacher Conferences
For many of us who teach, the change of the seasons to spring or fall brings changes outdoors we love -- of flowers newly in bloom, or leaves turning to...
Implementing RTI: Keeping Students at the Heart of Our Conversations
The success of any RTI initiative will rest largely on the ability of the teachers to select appropriate instructional activities based on the diagnostic evidence each student provides at the...
Assessment in Writing Workshops: Considering Students
I attended a Language Arts Committee Meeting this week with many other primary teachers across my district. I love going to these meetings because of the learning I take away...
Getting and Giving Student Feedback
I saved this quote from an email with the title "Why We Love Children": A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm just wasting my time,"...
