Formative assessment Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides explicit feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes. Formative assessment is a method of continually evaluating students’ academic needs and development within the classroom and precedes local benchmark assessments and state-mandated summative assessments. Teachers who engage in formative assessments give continual, explicit feedback to students and assist them in answering the following questions: Where am I going? In order to show students how to close the gap between where they are academically and where they want to be, teachers must help students evaluate their progress in the learning process and give them explicit, descriptive feedback specific to the learning task. History of formative assessments The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) developed a focus for formative assessment in October 2006.
Report cites 40 diverse examples of blended learning | Featured on eSchool News Educators also give their ‘wish lists’ for blended learning technology, policy By Meris Stansbury, Associate Editor Read more by Meris Stansbury May 3rd, 2011 The sample of programs studied was large enough to indicate trends in blended-learning usage. The term “blended learning” encompasses a number of different instructional models in use across the country, but who has the time to compare and contrast these programs for an analysis of what blended learning means today? The report, titled “The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning: Profiles of Emerging Models,” is part of a series on blended learning by Michael B. Horn is also co-author of the 2008 book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, and the reports are intended to study K-12 blended learning and measure its potential to become a disruptive technology in education. “The introduction of online learning into the schoolhouse is very new.
Do You Check for Understanding Often Enough with Students? A few months ago, I wrote for Edutopia.org about the power of focusing on a few, high-priority standards as a strategy to improve student learning. Many other elements also need to be in play in a classroom in order to produce the results that we all want to see for our students. To name just a few: The learning environment needs to be one in which students feel respected and safe to take risks; kids need to feel that their learning has a purpose and that the curriculum is relevant to their lives; and students need feedback on their progress -- they need to know what they're trying to accomplish, where they are in relation to the goal, and what they need to do in order to get there. It is the teacher's role to make sure this happens. The Multi-Tasking Teacher Although to be an effective teacher it often feels like you need to be one of those Hindu gods with a dozen arms, I believe that educators do need to hold standards and objectives in one hand and formative assessments in the other.
Formative Assessments "If you can both listen to children and accept their answers not as things to just be judged right or wrong but as pieces of information which may reveal what the child is thinking, you will have taken a giant step toward becoming a master teacher, rather than merely a disseminator of information." -Easley & Zwoyer, 1975 Proof Points Black and William (1998), two leading authorities on the importance of teachers maintaining a practice of on-going formative assessment, defined it as, “all those activities undertaken by teachers, and by the students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged.” Formative assessment encompasses a variety of strategies to determine student progress toward achieving specified learning goals. The strategies for investigating student learning identified below provide different types of data from and about students. How Do I Know What I Know? Is That a Fact?
Teaching ESL Students Reading & Phonemic Awareness- Reading Horizons By Robin Schwarz Spoken language is noise which the experienced listener sorts into meaningful chunks. A child spends many years perfecting this sorting. In a similar way, a learner of a new language must sort out the unfamiliar sounds into pieces that make sense: phrases or sentences, words, syllables and even phonemes (the smallest sound segments). This was good news for me, as I was searching for a way to help at-risk students in the college-level intensive English program where I teach. When I first decided to find a way to help these students, I began searching the ESL literature for ideas. Because the foreign language learners who were having difficulties had poor phonemic awareness as well as poor phonological skills, my first priority was clear, direct teaching of the sound system of English. Another lesson learned from the foreign language research was that the sounds should be taught one at a time in a clear sequence. The process requires lots and lots of repetition.
A Favorite Formative Assessment: The Exit Slip When we think about all the different ways we check for understanding in the classroom, a go-to strategy for many teachers has always been the exit slip or exit ticket. For this strategy, students write at the conclusion of learning, sometimes on a half-sheet of paper with sentence starters provided. It's then collected by the teacher. Why a favorite? Being that they come at the end of a lesson, unit, or segment of study, exit slips give teachers a snapshot of the overall student learning. Robert Marzano, classroom researcher and education author, recently wrote in depth about this formative assessment. Rate their current understanding of new learning. An exit slip can also be be a great way to set up the next day's learning. Discover Shared Interests Before introducing a group project that includes student choice, students can respond to a strategic question via an exit slip, sharing their primary topics of interest and their reasons. Activate Prior Knowledge The Start of an Essay
Assessment for Learning (AfL) Strategies AfL || Sharing Learning Expectations || Questioning || Feedback || Self-Assessment & Peer Assessment Sharing Learning Expectations The best way for teachers to share learning expectations is, well, to know them. Start with your state standards. In WA state we have pretty well organized Science standards and I also make use of the Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the National Science Education Standards. Once you have your standards figured out you need to back up. This is a sample Science learning progressions for the learning of insects. Too BIG – “Students know that: Earth is a system that contains a fixed amount of each stable chemical element existing in different chemical forms. Yeah! Too small – “Students know that energy can be transferred from one place to another.” What makes this too small for a learning target is the fact that it’s too low on bloom’s taxonomy that students know energy can be transferred. Feel free to leave me a comment :o) Back to the TOP Feedback 1. 2. 3.
ELTons - Innovation Awards - British Council The ELTons 2014 shortlists have been announced! Below are the nominees, selected by a panel of expert judges using the Delphi technique, who are in the running to win a prestigious ELTon award. Here are the 2014 nominees in full: Excellence in Course Innovation Access EAP: Frameworks - Garnet EducationDyslexia for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Dystefl) - Dystefl ProjectESOL National 4 - K2L LtdOUR WORLD - National Geographic LearningPicaro - Kaplan International EnglishTEDDY EDDIE Skillful - Macmillan Education Innovation in Learner Resources BreakingNewsEnglish.com - Sean Banville Academic Skills Series - CollinsDiscover our Amazing World CLIL READERS - Express PublishingHow to speak English; The pronunciation App - Kaplan International English International Management English series: Leading People, Managing Projects, Managing Change, Working Virtually - Delta Publishing LtdListenUp - Reallyenglish Innovation in Teacher Resources Digital Innovation Local Innovation
Verbal marking / feedback "If a child can't talk about it, they can't write about it. If a teacher can't talk about it, they shouldn't mark it." There's been a lot of silence on my blog over the summer period, but that doesn't mean my brain's been off education completely. This post is really a throw-out idea to see what you think - please do leave a comment or drop me an email with any kind of feedback. Allow me to begin - Verbally Marking. Make of the name what you will - at least it's not another acronym. Back in my school days, I used to love getting my marked work back. Occasionally, the teachers would talk to me about my written work. Halfway through the last academic year I made a conscious effort to mark as much Literacy work as possible with the child present, or go and speak to the child after marking their work to ask questions and tease out improvements. Of course, the idea of Verbal Marking is more of a dream than a guaranteed reality. Does written feedback really benefit students of a young age?
Dylan Wiliam – Formative Assessment – The Masterplan The first of a series of notes / reflections on sessions at the 2010 SSAT National Conference. Bio Dylan Wiliam has the grand title of ‘Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment‘ at the Institute of Education in London. He is a former Maths teacher and co-author of the book “Inside the Black Box“. He is a world renowned expert on assessment for learning, and was recently to be seen on BBC television in The Classroom Experiment. My Notes On learning environments & the role of the teacher: Teachers do not create learning. On intelligence & environment: Intelligence is partly inherited. On flow: Flow = match between challenge and capability. On assessment: Pre tests. 5 key strategies in teaching: On feedback & questioning: Middle class kids ‘get the code’, working class are no less intelligent just don’t get what we want. Plan questions carefully to elicit understanding, not incorrect methods that are resulting in right answers. Wait time for questioning. Key points: Cause thinking.
Moving from Web 2.No to Web 2.Go I spent the week of February 7-11 attending the 2011 TCEA Convention and Exposition in Austin, Texas. The theme for this year's gathering was "No LimITs", and it was an appropriate theme for my biggest takeaways from the conference. For years I have been hearing and reading about the need to open up Web 2.0 tools for student and teacher use in schools as well as moving toward 1:1 computer/device access for students. My conclusions: It is time to bring cloud computing into our schools. Some issues I know schools will need to address are: Bandwidth - Accessing the cloud, using Web 2.0 tools, and allowing students to connect personal devices to the network are going to take bandwidth - and lots of it. It is obviously going to take a time and collaboration to move from the realm of Web 2.No to Web 2.Go. Please share your thoughts: What am I leaving out as I think about this transition for schools?