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There is a law in organizational theory called Parkinson’s law which says that work will expand to fill the amount of time we are willing to devote to it.

Which of my students is still struggling with this essential skill? Which of my students has mastered the essential skill? What is an area in which my students excelled, what strategies led to their success, and how might I share those strategies with my colleagues, and conversely what is an area of weakness where I might seek help from my colleagues? Is there an area where students struggled regardless of the teacher to whom they were assigned and if so, what steps can our team take to address our own professional learning regarding teaching that skill?

Teams should create their own assessments rather than using textbooks or commercial assessments and should use performance-based assessments when the skill or concepts requires such an assessment.

or eliminating the Iowa Core.&nbsp; Heidi Doellinger, the district's instructional strategist, said prior to the core curriculums each Iowa school district wrote its own curriculum but that changed when the Iowa Core was implemented. Doellinger said they aligned the district's curriculum with the Iowa core and again with the national core. “It's tedious doing this again and again,” she said. Related Topics: Ames Community School District, Curriculum, Dan Woodin, Legislators, Mandy Ross, No Child Left Behind, and Schools Email me updates about this story. [["validates_email_format_of",{"message":"Enter a valid email address e.g. janedoe@aol.com."}]] Website: Thanks. We'll email you the next time we update this story. &nbsp;Email &nbsp;Print Follow comments &nbsp;Submit tip &nbsp; Comment Leave a comment [["validates_presence_of",{"message":"Hey, you forgot to let us know how you feel \u2014 please enter a comment."}],["validates_length_of",{"too_long":"Easy there, Tolstoy. Your comment cannot exceed 1500 characters.","maximum":1500,"allow_blank":true}]] Website: Get Email Updates Send me email updates for this article Would you like to receive email updates about this article? Yes, please No thanks Make a new comment on this article Close Read More in Government <

QR Codes are barcodes of information that hardlink the physical world with the online world.

They can save us time. They can save paper. They provide a link to mobile devices that help students do their homework and follow along.

Adobe air QR Code reader

Clear achievement targets or criteria for success are provided to students and parents in student friendly language before instruction begins. Doing so informs students what is expected of them upfront. Imagine how difficult it would be for a young person to build a log cabin for the first time without a picture, and then get graded on how similar their log home is to the picture they did not get to see. That would not be fair. However, providing clear achievement targets to students and parents before instruction begins can be a very efficient, effective, equitable formative assessment strategy.

Mastery of world languages and the weaving of global awareness into core subject areas are key components of their definition of success. Yet too often, as in President Obama's call to arms this week, the notion that part of a world-class education includes knowing something about the world gets left out of the reform rhetoric. It's time to include global competency—knowing how to compete, communicate and collaborate with the world—as a core 21st century skill that all students, indeed, have a right to learn

Instead, school leaders should ask that teachers meet with ONE collaborative group and one collaborative group only. Then, they should require that collaborative groups make formative assessment a priority. Meetings should focus on studying formative assessment data, creating exemplars, improving rubrics, and designing remediation and enrichment opportunities for kids. The simple truth is teachers just don’t have the time to do formative assessment correctly if their attention is divided between the kinds of traditional meetings we’ve always been required to attend.

For example, the educators community in Iowa uses #IowaCore for their discussions related to that subject. The group might have a real-time discussion, say, from 5-7 pm on a Tuesday afternoon, with participants hash-tagging their contributions so the thread appears in one column for people who follow that particular hashtag. Since a single brief tweet can contain a link to a richly textured site, essay, wiki or other content that lends far more depth to a subject, statement or inquiry, the limiting factor of 140 characters can become an asset, streamlining the dialogue in this format to essentials.

Developing the data collection system involves decisions about when to collect progress data and which rubric to use.

If a student has not made adequate progress toward an objective, the team needs to have a conversation to decide what to do.

The visual format of the intervention form enables team members to quickly review the data and make decisions about the intervention.