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
Rethinking Mrs. T Letters
Sunday mornings are my favorite time to discuss books with my students. On those mornings, I come down to the kitchen with my Ugg slippers on my feet, my cozy...
Value-Added: Moving Assessments from “Inflicted” to “Student-Owned”
I looked at Michael’s latest reading reflection and sighed. It was January, and he was still struggling to make progress in his ability to demonstrate deep thinking about his independent...
Evaluating the Literacy Classroom
In my career as an educator, the way teachers are evaluated has changed dramatically. I have a clear memory of my first evaluation. My stomach was clenched in first-year teacher...
Revising My Recording Form for Writing Conferences
Writing conferences—the one-on-one conversations we have with students while their classmates are busy writing—are the most important teaching opportunities we have in the writing workshop. —Carl Anderson in Assessing Writers...
On Perfection and Goals
When I began teaching, Mark McGwire was breaking the home-run record in major-league baseball. We sat in the stands and cheered home runs 67 and 68, awed by the consistency...
Helping Middle School Readers Set Goals
The nagging numbness in my left hand continued to bother me on longer runs, and it was working its way down to the first mile of my workouts. Mile after...
Running and Middle School Reading Goals
“Mrs. TAYLOR!” “What was that from?” ”Wow -- you are SWEAT-YYYY!” I hear lots of giggles. “Last weekend,” I started, “I ran a half marathon in Oxford, which is where...
Introducing the Common Core Standards in Writing (Part 2)
We began our morning with this objective: “We will read, unwrap and reflect on the ten Common Core State Standards related to writing and the first three language standards. We...
Assessment and Curriculum Mapping
In this video from a new teacher study group for grades 3-5 teachers, Jennifer Allen demonstrates how teachers can use assessment data to develop instructional plans for individual students, and create curriculum maps for an entire class.
Class Discussion: Test-Taking Strategies (Part 3)
Andrea Smith leads her 4th grade class during word study time as they analyze a math word problem. In this video, she debriefs with the whole class after partner work. This is the final video in a three-part series.
Reading Word Problems: Test-Taking Skills (Part 1)
Andrea Smith leads her 4th grade class during word study time as they analyze a math word problem. She uses an anchor chart developed by the class that lists math skills and strategies that are essential for success.
Conferring Close-Up: Test-Taking Strategies (Part 2)
Andrea Smith leads her fourth-grade class during word study time as they analyze a math word problem. In this video, she chats with two girls who are considering the word problem. This is the second video in a three-part series.
Setting Nonfiction Goals
Franki Sibberson facilitates a discussion with her class of third and fourth graders about their nonfiction reading. They are setting goals during Nonfiction Reading Time.
Tried and True Trumps Shiny and New
My son, Mitchell, adores the idea of getting something new. "Please!" he begs, "Can we go to the toy store?" He believes there must be a toy out there that...
Capturing Student Learning with Evernote
Sometimes it amazes me to think I have been teaching for over 20 years. I would have thought that at this point I'd have this profession down to a science....
How Do We Know Small-Group Instruction is Effective?
An interesting question to pose is: Do beliefs change behavior or does behavior change beliefs? Many people think the former: that beliefs change behavior, which is why so many new...
Assessing Gifted Readers
In my classroom of gifted learners, I'm required to collect baseline data on my third- and fourth-grade students' reading abilities in order to set measurable learning goals for the year....
More Thoughtful Test Preparation: A Conversation with Patrick Allen (PODCAST)
Patrick Allen is the coauthor of the book Put Thinking to the Test. In the book, Patrick and his colleagues from the Public Education and Business Coalition in Denver, Colorado describe...
Sense of Little Engines
About half of our coaching staff is engaged in a book study of Peter Johnston's Choice Words. We meet once a month before school at a local coffee shop that offers...
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan on Assessments, Data, and Balance (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan, the founders of Teachers for Teachers, talk with Franki Sibberson about data. The challenge for teachers and schools is grappling with the...
Language in the Classroom: Using a Recorder as a Teaching Resource
Recording language gives teachers a chance to re-hear the conversations in their classrooms. Recording devices have always been a staple tool for teachers, and with 21st-century technologies, the possibilities for...
