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Summer 2010 Issue
Assessment, Keeping Learners at the Center
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In
this issue, we focus on maintaining student learning at the heart of assessment
practice. Giselle Martin-Kniep's feature article provides guidelines for
analyzing student work, and Angela Lalor writes a piece about keeping students
at the center of the feedback process.
Both emphasize that examining and responding to student work is
an essential part of learning for teachers and students. We
hope that this issue deepens your thinking about assessment in service of student learning.
Thank you for joining Best Practice's first year. Have a wonderful summer and we look forward to sharing more Best Practice in September.
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Feature Articles Lessons from Helping Teachers Analyze Student Work
by Giselle Martin-KniepWhile
the analysis of student work has been touted as one of the most powerful means
of understanding students' learning needs and refining our teaching practices,
organizing ourselves to do this work can be daunting. Teachers and
administrators are often puzzled by the following questions: What work should we analyze? Whose work should we look at? What should we look for? When do we look at the work? What information about our analysis should be
captured? What follows are insights LCI has learned from its work with teachers
and schools in hundreds of schools... read more
Feedback with the Student at the Heart
by
Angela Di Michele Lalor
Providing
useful feedback to students is like using a GPS. When the GPS is on, it
lets us know how we are doing as we progress towards our destination...read more
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Consultant Spotlight
Diane
Cunningham
 Diane
Cunningham is LCI's Director of Consultant Support and a senior consultant. A strong
advocate of collegial inquiry and action research for many years, both within LCI and in the professional development field, Diane has developed expertise in guiding a process of planning and carrying out collaborative and individual inquiry that is rigorous and grounded in
classroom practices. While facilitating this work with educators, she continues to study
with them in order to hone her own practice. Diane is currently
completing an ASCD Action Tool, titled Tools
for Successful Collegial Inquiry. Learn more about Diane and her work. |
Upcoming Events
Giselle Martin-Kniep and Jennifer Borgioli will be presenting a session on using technology to assess and support small learning communities in the upcoming national conference From Structure to Instruction: Sharing Best Practices and Lessons Learned from High School Redesign Lessons to be held in Las Vegas between June 28, 2010 and June 30, 2012.
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This summer, LCI consultants Julie
Kopp and Jennifer Borgioli will facilitate two LCI Teaching and Learning
Assessment Institutes in Brighton, NY.
Negotiating the Assessment Maze
(July 6-8 in Brighton,
NY)
Shifting the Conversation
from What's my grade? to What did I learn?: Designing Assessments that
Enable Students to Monitor their Learning
(July 21-23 in
Brighton, NY)
The conferences are
designed for teachers, instructional coaches, teacher leaders, assistant
principals, principals, and district personnel who want to understand
the theory and practice of quality assessment.
There is also the
option of attending a one-day session just for administrators on July
9.
Hosted by Brighton, these experiences are open to all through Monroe 1 BOCES. More information is available here.
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Specialized Support
LCI reaches out to schools and districts in need of improvement. Click here for more information about how LCI can support identified schools and districts.
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Client Corner
At PS 310 in the Bronx, teachers in grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 have worked this year to articulate standards for student work in task specific rubrics. Together, the teachers identified indicators of success and re-designed their units to be sure to teach to all of the indicators embedded in their rubrics. A core practice in this process involved using student work to 1) identify students' strengths and struggles within classrooms and across each grade level; 2) identify adjustments that need to be made to the mini lessons inside of each unit based on student needs and 3) revise the rubrics so that they provide greater guidance for teachers and for the development of criteria with students.
When asked about what this work has enabled her to do, one teacher commented, "I am better able to scaffold according to my students' needs. For example, I know that I need to take the next step with my students who are ready to write without a graphic organizer and that I need to continue to provide the vocabulary support for my ELL's." Another teacher, when asked about how this work impacted the grade level, responded by stating, "We are more consistent across the grade level and when we look at student work we are in agreement about strengths and needs."
This work illustrates how best practices must always come back to the student and that the collaborative examination of student work can benefit individual students and classrooms as well as support grade level goal setting.
To learn more about LCI's work with rubrics, visit our rubric wiki. |
What We're Thinking About
Assessment Systems: Understanding the Layers of an Onion
by Angela Di Michele Lalor
Taking a metaphorical look at assessment, Angela contemplates how an assessment system that is "sweet" improves what teachers learn about their students and allows them to use their knowledge to move student learning forward. Read Angela's reflection and leave comments on the LCI Ning.
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Grants Available
Toshiba
is offering math and science grants to classroom teachers. For information and
application, visit their site.
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Editors: Diane
Cunningham and Joanne Picone-Zocchia
Production: Jennifer
Borgioli
LCI: cultivating best practice, inspiring
excellence
Contact
Us
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