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The Common Core State Standards and accompanying K-12 assessments have recently sparked a fierce national backlash against testing. Sound educational testing and assessment are integral to good teaching and learning in classrooms and necessary for evaluating school performance and assuring quality in education. Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, I propose a more considered, "mend, not end" approach to testing, assessment, and accountability in America's schools, with validity at the forefront of the conversation.

Mending begins with understanding that most commercial standardized tests are designed to serve particular purposes well, for particular populations, and can support only particular decisions at best. To uphold validity principles in practice, it is worthwhile to ask: Are we using the test for the originally intended purpose, or for another purpose that taxes the tool beyond its technical limits? Multi-purposing a test indiscriminately is not a good idea from a validity standpoint, despite its efficiency.

Below is my curated collection of videos for general Common Core info, as well as videos to teach the close reading, text complexity and informational texts standards

The National Council of English Teachers (NCTE) position statement on teaching composition argues that students “need guidance and support throughout the writing process, not merely comments on the written product,” and that “effective comments do not focus on pointing out errors, but go on to the more productive task of encouraging revision” (CCCC 2004).

feedback serves as a pedagogical tool to improve learning by motivating students to rethink and rework their ideas rather than simply proofread and edit for errors.

“feedback should focus on improving the skills needed for the construction of end products more than on the end products themselves”

Teachers can connect to their students on a wider level as well as on a personal level.Interactions can be taken beyond the classroom as Twitter is omnipresent in our smartphones and laptops.Twitter allows for customization of learning depending on the student i.e. differentiating learning for different students.Twitter can be used to quickly connect to multimedia resources (e.g. YouTube or Vine) and turn education into edutainment.Twitter gives new opportunities to connect to other learning communities and new educational content.The very nature of Twitter – brief and to-the-point makes for rapid broadcast of learning

You may be skeptical of edcamps, but you shouldn't be. They are much more engaging, and widely held than you may think. According to Kristen Swanson, Senior Educational Research Leader at BrightBytes, and co-founder of the Edcamp Movement, "Edcamps are more than just an idea or theory; they're an international movement. The model has been replicated in 41 states and dozens of countries worldwide. Over 25,000 educators have participated in a regional Edcamp event, and many more have participated in an Edcamp-style event at their school."   Considering how grassroots edcamps are, it's going to be interesting to what happens, when the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) holds their edcamp in June.