Lead Lit Topic: Assessment
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. Authentic assessment of learning helps us plan quality instruction. Here you'll find everything from one-page templates of formative assessments created by literacy coaches to videos of staff teams poring over large summative data sets.
Results
Questions for Reflection and Goal Setting with Teachers
We start the school year, and all of a sudden it’s spring. Where did the time go? Even when a fast pace is the result of students experiencing deep learning,...
The Evolution of Data Meetings
Years ago as a reading specialist in one building, I began the data-wall journey with a giant data wall made out of pegboard with hooks and different-colored shapes for each...
The Students Behind the Numbers
Data is everywhere. From the digital speed displays as we drive our vehicles, to the number of calories for each option at a restaurant, we are immersed in information. This...
It’s All About Perception
Life is all about perception. Positive versus negative. Whichever you choose will affect and more than likely reflect your outcomes. Sonya Techlai The blessing of first-of-the-year assessments is that...
Taking a Literacy Temperature
I am the principal of a different school this year. Although I was devastated to leave my previous building—I loved it, and it truly felt like home to me—part of...
One Task Fits All
Teachers, often and with good reason, get exasperated by all the demands on their time that don’t connect with their daily work in the classroom. The day-to-day planning of instruction...
The Common Core and Parents: Building Bridges, Not Walls
One of our challenges at our school is parent involvement. We are paying particular attention to the feel and tone of our parent conferences. Holding up the mirror is not...
Goal Setting with Google Spreadsheets
Early in the school year I was contacted by a fifth-grade teacher asking for a way to help her students keep track of their own learning and to set goals...
Coaching Logs and Daily Reflective Routines
As a classroom teacher, I was intentional—one could even say obsessive—about reflecting on the effectiveness of my work. Almost nightly, I would spread a pile of work across my living...
Math, Literacy, and RTI
For several years, I’ve been lucky enough to work with the brilliant Amy Simmons, an instructional support teacher and “administrative intern” (a fancy name to describe an assistant principal). Part...
Assessment and Response to Intervention
Lisa is a third grader who has been in intervention for two years. She was placed in intervention based on the results of a universal screener. This screener determined her...
Creating Flash Continuums
It is part of my work to guide teams of teachers to create standards-based learning continuums. A continuum is a way to generate a common understanding of a selected standard...
Rethinking End-of-Year Assessments
If an assessment is not lifting the quality of our instruction or helping us understand the needs of readers, we believe we need to question why we are giving it....
Coaching Minute: Personalizing Assessment Binders
Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher chat about the challenges of getting teachers to use assessment binders, and the importance of helping teachers tailor the binders to their needs.
Grade Three Writing Checklist
Tammy Mulligan uses a checklist with third-grade writers in this demonstration lesson. The lesson includes a planning session and debrief with the teacher.
Poetry for Notetaking
On most days when I enter Katie Czerwinski’s sixth-grade classroom, I take out my trusty notebook and pen and pull up a chair beside a student or settle into a...
Coaching Minute: Getting Started with Evernote
Ruth Ayres and Deb Gaby talk about how they are beginning to use Evernote and different ways of organizing the tool.
Accountable Talk: Beginning Steps
As another set of state test scores reaches our doorway, our grade 3-6 teachers are frustrated at the amount of work they have done with students over the past four...
Writer-ish
Thinking ishly allowed his ideas to flow freely. Peter Reynolds in Ish In my new position as a literacy coach, I no longer have a classroom of students. Although...
Failure to Thrive: Rethinking Assessment Binders
"Let's put together a binder for teachers that holds all the important assessment things they need. Let's make them color coded by grade level. And let's give them to every...
Creating a Healthy Classroom Culture the First Week of School
Teachers are lucky: we get two New Year’s Days when we get to celebrate and make resolutions for a fresh start. The most important one, of course, is the unofficial...
