Tagged: essential standards

Assessment Transformation in Unprecedented Times

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Many are predicting larger-than-ever achievement disparities due to the deep inequities in our system that existed even before this pandemic. 

Achievement gaps are the symptom of educational system deficits that do not serve all students well, in particular our black, brown and indigenous children. Knowing this deepening disparity, our planning and design must be intentional, and dramatically different than anything we have done before. Our district and school leadership teams, collaborative teams, and individual teachers can set up the context that will ensure success for all of our students. I believe in educators. Read more

Improving Professional Practice Through Assessments

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It’s widely supported that using common formative assessments is one of the best ways to systematically improve student learning (DuFour et al. (2016); Reeves, 2004; Ainsworth, 2007). The impact of these assessments is best realized when teams collaboratively unwrap the essential standards into smaller learning targets, use formative measures to monitor student learning of those targets, and use the results to engage students with meaningful feedback and support to propel learning forward (Bailey and Jakicic, 2019). Read more

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Before We Get to Work: Foundational Questions of Quality Assessment Design

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Think of a recent assessment design conversation you had with a colleague. What aspect of the assessment process did you discuss? Did you consider which standards to assess? Did you talk about how many questions, or tasks, were needed to determine student mastery? Or, did you examine the content that you would evaluate?

As the director of assessment at a large public high school in the Midwest, I engage in these assessment conversations often with teachers and collaborative teams. While we discuss all aspects of the assessment process, the most common question I hear from teachers is, “What should my assessments look like?” Read more

Do You Have a “Stop Doing” List?

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One of my favorite activities when working with teams at this time of the year is to have them create a “stop doing” list. This is a list of lessons, assessments, instructional strategies, and curriculum that team members realize are not serving them well in their goal of high levels of learning for every student. It’s actually the antithesis of a “to do” list, and will likely be a highly reflective opportunity for collaborative teams. Read more

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Are Rubrics Counterproductive and Limiting?

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A few months ago, a young teacher, Maggie, asked me what I thought of the use of rubrics. I thought it a curious question, so I asked her why she was asking. Maggie told me that she was taking some college post-graduate courses, and although a few of her teachers used them, one professor was very opposed to them and said they were counterproductive, limiting, and should not be used. Read more

Another Test? How to Plan Assessments So Students Can Learn

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Ever feel like you are giving assessments all the time? Between the pretest, post-test, quizzes, district benchmarks, state interim assessments, or other nationally normed progress monitoring assessments, when is a student supposed to learn? When is a teacher supposed to teach? Is it possible to have too many assessments? Read more

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What are Common Formative Assessments Anyway?

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One thing I’ve learned as I work with schools across the country is that there are a lot of different definitions collaborative teams are using for common formative assessments, and what these teams think common formative assessments are influences how they write and use these assessments with their students. In our book, Collaborating for Success in the Common Core, we offer the following definition to help teams make sure they’re able to use their results to improve student learning Read more

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Are Essential Standards a Part of the Assessment Process?

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As I’ve worked with teams across the country in developing and using assessments, I’ve heard some interesting beliefs about essential standards (e.g., “We’re not allowed to do this in our district,” or “Our curriculum only requires us to teach the essential standards”). Comments like these have convinced me that there are lots of educators who have misconceptions about the first of the four essential questions we ask a collaborative team in a PLC to answer. That question is: “What do we want our students to know and do?” Read more