Adaptive innovation and experimentation, experts say, is the rule in a period of rapid change that can be seen as the digital-age equivalent of the ferment after the introduction of the printing press. "We're experiencing the biggest media petri dish in four centuries," observes Paul Saffo, a visiting scholar at Stanford University who specializes in technology's effect on society.
not only end-of-year tests similar to those in use now but also formative tests that teachers will administer several times a year to help guide instruction
students are given a problem — they could be told, for example, to pretend they are a mayor who needs to reduce a city’s pollution — and must sift through a portfolio of tools and write analytically about how they would use them to solve the problem.
"(...) not only end-of-year tests similar to those in use now but also formative tests that teachers will administer several times a year to help guide instruction (...)"
In this lesson, students examine the new Times Opinionator series Disunion, which “follows the Civil War as it unfolded.” They then analyze Civil War-era primary sources to use as writing prompts for their own contributions to a Civil War blog.