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Fall 2009 Issue
Focus on Feedback |
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A Welcome from the President
Welcome
to the first edition of our LCI newsletter, an opportunity for us to
share our learning and work with you. We are committed to creating
forums such as this where our clients, friends and new acquaintances
can appreciate and become inspired by the complexity and depth of their
professional learning endeavors, and learn more about their work and
that of other schools and districts.
In this first issue
of our newsletter, Diane Cunningham writes about the value of
feedback in supporting adult learning and illustrates its importance to
one of our schools. We also highlight the expertise of Angela Lalor,
whose work in multiple measures has had great impact for schools. This
issue also previews several electronic and print learner-centered
resources. Each issue will also include an LCI offering, some tool or resource we have
developed that we hope will be of interest and use to you. This first
issue provides you with a link to our response rubric, a tool that we use to help clients provide effective feedback.
We wish you an inspirational fall season, leaf
by leaf and learner by learner - and hope that this newsletter is a
welcome contribution to your pursuits.
Enjoy!
Giselle Martin-Kniep
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Feature Article
Adults Need Feedback, Too!
by Diane Cunningham
Feedback is  an essential component
of learning for both children and adults. When provided during the
learning process, it can allow a learner to reflect, make adjustments
and improve. Many researchers have documented the value of feedback
for students (Brookhart 2008, Bransford, Brown & Cocking 2000).
While there is great agreement that students need feedback, we
sometimes forget that adults need feedback too, especially when they
take on new roles and responsibilities. Many teachers choose to make a
commitment to facilitate the learning of other adults. They take on
coaching or mentoring roles, organize and lead collegial circles, agree
to chair a department or become staff developers. Often, they embark
on this new journey with little feedback on their practice. . . . read more
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Consultant Spotlight
Angela Lalor
Angela
Lalor is a veteran LCI consultant with great
expertise in helping educators to align and link standards with assessment and
reporting practices. Much of her work involves supporting teachers in analyzing
student work to determine student learning and identify appropriate learning
targets. Angela has presented nationally at the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development (ASCD) annual conference on managing standards for special education
teachers, co-teaching, and using multiple measures to determine student
performance. Click here to learn more about Angela's work and future publications.
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New LCI Service!
Inquiry Audit: In Support of Quality Inquiry
LCI is now offering an Inquiry Audit for
schools and districts interested in strategically improving their ongoing
inquiry work. Please visit us at www.lciltd.org for more information.
If your school is beginning a new inquiry focus this year, here's our Checklist for Quality Inquiry Planning to help you get started.
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Ning Update
Network with other LCI clients on our Ning. Current questions under discussion through blogs and discussion groups include: How can we best distribute leadership across a school?
How do we know that our professional development efforts are
cost-effective?
What rubrics are best suited for students ages 3-6?
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Changing the Way You Teach, Improving the Way Students Learn by Giselle
Martin-Kniep and Joanne Picon e-Zocchia was recently released by ASCD.
This book focuses on best practices in curriculum instruction and
assessment design for teachers at all grade levels and includes many
specific examples of assessment tools that can support the feedback
process.
Order Now
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Client Corner
Park
Early Childhood Center, Ossining, NY
Over the last year, the faculty at Park, led by
Principal, Ann Dealy, focused on learning about and improving their use
of curriculum embedded assessments. As part of an LCI Facilitation
Program focused on Quality Assessment Practices
Patricia Vieira, a first grade teacher, wrote as part of her learning portfolio:
"I was most intrigued at the value of checklists and rubrics. While
I've used them for my own personal use, I was really surprised at the
ways educators can incorporate them into teaching. I didn't know that
there were so many different types of rubrics and the samples of
holistic, analytic, developmental, task-specific, and generic rubrics
you provided were really helpful. I especially benefitted from talking
to my colleagues about involving students and creating my own classroom
rubrics. In my small group and in our whole group discussion everyone
was impressed with the potential that various rubrics and checklists
provided for instruction, feedback and self assessment. This discussion
was so powerful that the next Professional Development Day at our
building was focused on it."
the school community explored developmentally appropriate assessment
practices, designed various types of assessments (product, performance,
and process) for their kindergarten and first graders, and examined the
results of those assessments together.
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How To Give Effective
Feedback to Your Students was written by Susan M. Brookhart and published
by ASCD in 2008. This text provides a
comprehensive overview of how to give various types of feedback. Brookhart
describes how to examine the focus, function and clarity of feedback and describes
feedback strategies for different types of learners, including special needs,
English language learners, successful students and struggling students.
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Upcoming Themes
Winter
(Dec 2009) Multiple Measures
Spring
(Mar 2010) Formative Assessment
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LCI: cultivating best practice, inspiring excellence
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