If homework is to serve as formative data, then it needs to be instructionally sensitive for both student and teacher alike. Ideally, then, what happened with homework the night before should inform a classroom teacher’s instruction immediately the next day. Rather than simply correcting right/wrong answers and then collecting the homework papers to be recorded […]
It was probably inevitable that when educational experts began highlighting formative assessment as the Golden Child because of its incredibly positive impact on student achievement, summative assessment would then be dubbed the evil stepchild and relegated to the grunge of ‘clean up’ work. Summative assessments are tolerated, but distastefully so: today they are popularly referred […]
Assessment experts (e.g. Jan Chappuis, Jon Hattie, Rick Stiggins, and Dylan Wiliam, to name a few) state that student motivation has been disconnected from the assessment process in the past, but must be reconnected if schools are to create high levels of student achievement. Ultimately, students must be the decision makers regarding their progress while […]
A reverse poem is a poem that can send two very different messages, all depending on the direction it is read: Read forward and the message is extremely negative, but reverse the same words, and the message is surprisingly positive (see “The Lost Generation” poem at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA as an example). Data can be like that. […]
A co-authored contribution with Amanda Ellis, Director, Instructional Development Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches Had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches Had none upon thars. Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all. Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches By third grade in most classroom […]