Group items tagged

This article is a case study on how better teacher preparation for instruction and assessment of writing can lead to improved writing instruction.

(Week 4: Frances and Claudio) This article is accessible through the link given above. This article focus on teachers ability to improve their instruction skills by eliminating their weakness to overlook students needs by pretending the problem is non existent. It focus on the inconsistencies of teachers' techniques for class deliverance and the missed learning opportunities for students. The readings present that students are not always given the opportunities to write or be assessed in the context of classroom instruction by teachers who feel uneasy on how they deliver the class subject. Other areas of the article points out that students get low exposure to variety forms of writing and become in prepared when there is a change in writing format.(Graham & Perin, 2007; Hillocks, 2008). Through the SMART goal, Group#4 can utilize some of the examples by providing opportunities to students by offering different writing assignments that are more realistic to meet writing abilities of the students. Students will be more in line with the SMART goal if they are allowed to provide the feedback to the teacher once the assignment is complete so they can see their own improvements. Also, teachers can improve in the teaching efforts and will be able to provide the appropriate assignments to those students who extra help which will move the teachers' uneasiness about their preparation to teach and assess writing at different learning levels. Read, Sylvia and Landon-Hays, Melanie M. (2013) "The Knowing/Doing Gap: Challenges of Effective Writing Instruction in High School," Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. Available at: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/wte/vol2/iss2/3

Useful tool for assessing the color scheme of a web page.

This article shows that through reflective teaching and coaching, diverse struggling readers can beneficiate from different strategies and will help to close instructional gaps.

I like the ideas presented here, they elaborate on the need for ELL students to have word association and phonetic instruction to further their understanding of content. This is particularly stressed in the elementary grades, however having a teaching coach for ELL learners in the higher grades could assist students that did not have phonetic instruction in the lower grades. One particular item of interest was the comment made that data results from assessment is not analyzed until later in the year and as a result does not benefit the students that took the assessment. Due to this the author stresses the need for collaboration of the teaching team to identify skills and strategies needed and subsequently develop ways to address the skill or strategy needed that will enhance learning.

This study shows the importance of encouraging students to explain their thinking while solving math problems. This study focused on how formative assessments, in which students are allowed to explain their thinking, can then be used to help inform teacher instruction to address the specific gaps in knowledge. This study focused on Kindergarten and First Grade students.

This article explains how having data cycles as part of the school culture will increase student achievement. The data cycle consists assessment, analysis and action. Having this cycle in place will allow all stakeholders to monitor progress and make adjustments as needed to benefit student learning.

This article explains three sources of data information a teacher can collect to make instructional decisions. These data sources are: formative assessments, cumulative files and standardized test data. The formative assessments include quizzes, exit slips, and include anecdotal notes from classroom observations. These resources prove invaluable and will provide teachers with information to be better plan lessons that meet student needs.

This article examines the types of data teachers can collect from their own students and how it can be used to change instruction. It offers several different ideas and causes of low student achievement and how a teacher may address these issues.

How teachers are raising scores and student achievement by setting high expectations, frequent assessment and getting parents and families involved.

I really like the points that this article identifies in how teachers are closing the achievement gap. The main strategies that they are using are clearly helping students with their learning and understanding of the instruction. It is important to set high expectations for all students and to help students develop confidence in their learning. Through frequent assessment, we are able to monitor student growth and progress to identify what works for them and what needs to be improved. Parent involvement is also vital. Currently in my classroom, it is clear to me which parents are involved in their child's learning as it correlates to their child's performance. There needs to be a clear relationship and consistency between the two to maximize student success.

The article discusses how to use data in the classroom meaningfully.

The importance of short term goals in data driven decision making is addressed. It also discusses streamlining data so that teachers actually have time to create interventions, rather than just take assessments and read data.

This article is very resourceful in presenting ideas to create a data environment without inclusion of anxiety or pressure. In collecting and representing data, this article discusses several ways to display the data and set short term acceptable goals.

As stated by the MobyMax software program, it "combines curriculum resources like placement tests, adaptive lessons, progress monitoring, IEP reporting with teacher tools, and motivational features (badges, games, and contests)." Users are able to upload student rosters for this program that accommodates grade levels k-8. Drill-and-practice lessons/assessments are Common Core State Standard aligned for both mathematics and reading content. My students and I enjoyed this software as a supplement to classroom instruction. With kid-friendly visuals and quick feedback on assessment scores, this classroom supplement will make learning more engaging.

If you use rubrics in your classroom but hate starting from scratch, this is the the place for you! Sign up for free and search by keyword for rubrics in the specific skill or content area you are grading. Then edit and save! You can even put a link to your rubric on the assignment directions, saving paper and trees! This is a link to a rubric I recently created, but you can get to the home page from here.

This looks great - I am always looking for help with rubrics. Check out Kathy Schrok's guide too: http://www.schrockguide.net/assessment-and-rubrics.html

I really like this! I love that you can embed the link to the rubric. This would be very helpful with a WebQuest or Scavenger Hunt lesson. I have used Rubistar before. It is similar, but I think this site offers more options. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

The Khan Academy is a free online resource for learners to access over 3,000 videos. Since the video tutorials are short, the content keeps even the most distracted student's attention. Working at a Community college, many students entering are required to take academic placement test in math and english. The math assessment seems to be the most fustrating among students. This site has interactive quizzes to assist in preparation and or to identify where the deficiency is for students. Students are advised to review the content prior to completing the assessments and to help as they matriculate throughout their required math courses.

It is an online assessment program that teachers and students can use to assess students skill level throughout a course. It costs money but there is a free demo that we are going to check out.

("Week 7" Group members : Ruchel and Beth) This website has strategies for teaching the alphabet aside from the common "letter of the week" style. This website can be used as a resource for alphabet related assessments in the Pre-k and Kindergarten classroom.

Week 9: This article deals with integrating technology in the classroom. Although, a lot of what is discussed in the article has been talked about in some of the courses, the on paragraph I like and find helpful is on Using Technology for Feedback and Assessment. It provides a few online tools that could help teachers get quick feedback on a lesson. Teachers could use this to help with using different technology tools to gain feedback from their students.

Week 9 - Lauren Geier (partner) This article is an important complement to any discussion on assessment: what kind of feedback will help our students improve? Wiggins describes feedback as "information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal' and as such it needs to be goal-referenced, tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing and consistent. Wiggins elaborates on these key characteristics; often using sport to illustrate his point. He also gives examples to differentiate feedback from advice and evaluation and grades. This is a great article for teachers because it is very concrete and gives us very clear advice on how to improve the efficiency of our feedback. While some of these essentials may seem obvious, the feedback we give our students on a regular base might not meet all these criteria and it is an important read if we want our assessment to really help students progress.

I really like this article because I feel that this is an important topic that every educator should look at. It is very important for students to receive positive and negative feedback because it will only make them better. It will help the students become aware of what is expected of them. Feedback can come from comments verbally or written on rubrics, etc. The students progress will continue to grow when they receive quality feedback.

This article discusses the importance or non-importance of homework. Ideas addressed are homework policy, homework as formative assessment, and emphasis on homework versus achievement. Ultimately, it is suggested that feedback is what is most important.

This resource speaks to the importance of giving students the opportunity to experience word problems in a more natural way, such as providing video anchors. This article identifies a video resource that was created by Vanderbilt University titled "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury." These videos present a real life challenge and problem that helps students work through the problem solving process as a class.

This article discusses strategies for helping relate word problems to real life for students. It is suggested to use anchored instruction, linking instruction to assessment and having students answer challenge problems. The implication is that word problems are textual as opposed to contextual and that real-world problem solving occurs in dynamic environments. This could help by presenting word problems in a different manner for students, thereby linking the problem to a real world sccenario.

A useful module that explains how tiering can provide help learners learn better and has videos of examples. This can help improve Smart Goals for improvement in assessments, and homework and classroom performance.

I enjoyed the video on Tiering. Our teams' SMART goal is, "Students will be able to solve an on grade level math task, that will require them to respond and defend their work to explain their reasoning 3 out of 5 times by the end of the 1st marking period." I think an important concept to note, is that this activity has a high Impact on Learning because it differentiates for the particular needs of each student. This process also encourages Student Engagement, which allows for the students to work comfortably in a peer environment. By having more time to plan differentiated work to meet simultaneous goals between students, the teacher is also scaffolding. The teacher is giving support to students who need it and to also challenge those students to maintain interest or to continue the work of those who have mastered a specific skill but may need more advanced strategies to continue the upward curve of learning. EDTC 615 Fall2018

With the video, the topic of towering the lesson is shown. With my SMART goal focusing on the 11th graders in my health education classes, it I'm important for me to address all the educational needs of my students. Currently, I use DI in my classes and I found a piece of information from the video that can I can begin to implement. The teacher had her students raise their hand with chosen number of fingers in the air. The number represents the level that each student feels they are on in regards to understanding the topic. While the exact way this strategy is used is not something I think will be effective with my high school students, the number system is. I can have my students write and post their perceived number and explain why they chose that number. Then, I can see the comfortability each student has with the topic. THey would have to apply extended reasoning which is a respresentation of depth of knowledge from the planning protocol rubric. EDTC Fall2018 EL