Group items tagged

"For all the ink that has been spilled regarding the issue of differentiated instruction, little has been said about differentiated assessment. There is no doubt that students come to school with a variety of backgrounds and learning needs, and Carol Ann Tomlinson (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006) and others (e.g., Stefanakis & Meier, 2010; Fogarty & Pete, 2010) have documented the importance of the issue and the potential success of the results."

"What is qualitative formative assessment? Some call it anecdotal or informal assessment. However, such designations imply passivity -- as if certain things were captured accidentally. I believe the word "formative" should always be included with the word assessment because all feedback mechanisms should help shape and improve the person (or situation) being assessed. Wedging the word "qualitative" into my terminology differentiates it from the analytic or survey-based measures that some associate with the term formative assessment."

Having devices in your classroom for students to use, whether you have carts of computers, iPads, or Chromebooks; a 1:1 program; or a BYOD initiative, can be exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Using these devices to provide content support and differentiation for each student is not hard to do. You have long been supplying material for your students at all levels to both remediate and expand their knowledge base. But what about designing formative and summative assessments that use technology and target higher-order thinking skills? Teachers should ask themselves this question, as well as how to develop tasks that transform what goes on in the classroom.

"How will we remember 2011? On a broad level, many would agree the past year has been a difficult one with the economic recession, social upheavals and political differences weighing on the minds of many. And at times, the discourse on the state of education in 2011 seemed to reflect this same uncertainty found elsewhere in society, as debates raged on topics such as firing teachers, NCLB reauthorization and fair teacher evaluations."