TL;DR: School districts can go from surviving to thriving by shifting from isolation to collaboration. Other ways to go from surviving to thriving include assessing for learning and shifting the focus from teaching to learning. In mid-March, school districts across the United States began adjusting the school schedule and learning environment. Due to a global pandemic, several schools closed for two … Read More
Using Backwards Design to Create Assessments
In This Post: Aligned assessments are vital to accurately measuring student understanding. Four steps to create assessments that are aligned to your objectives. As an educator, assessment design can be a pain. Many times, we are tempted to find an assessment from available curriculum resources or grab questions from the “back of the chapter” and call it a day. However, … Read More
Using Conferences for Grading Students
In This Post The struggle of quantifying mastery with a letter or percent. Grading conferences as a solution to this struggle! Steps to set up grading conferences in your classroom & communicate about them to stakeholders. Feedback from students on grading conferences. In a mastery learning classroom, determining student quarter or final grades can be difficult. How do you assign … Read More
Building Better Rubrics
In This Post: An experience with a badly created rubric. What rubrics should measure… and what they shouldn’t. Ideas to include students in rubrics and assessment. Some time ago, I sat listening to presentations from my students. I paused at a student who obviously had not understood the concepts they were presenting on. The student spoke well, included the required components in … Read More