Teachers from ten school districts attended the first Pre-Advanced Placement (AP) Summer Institute on the campus of Black Hills State University, July 21-24. The forty-seven middle school and high school participants received intense training in the areas of English, mathematics and science.
Certified Laying the Foundation, Inc. trainers provided the training which is aimed at increasing [...]

Continue reading...

ETS “Assessment for Learning” Conference
Portland, Oregon
July 13-15, 2009
Dylan first presented us with two fraction problems from a standardized test. The first question asked which fraction was the smallest, the second question asked which fraction was the largest. Question one had a success rate of 88% whereas question two had a 46% success rate and 39% [...]

Continue reading...

ETS “Assessment for Learning” Conference
Portland, Oregon
July 13-15, 2009
Bruce Herzog and Joni Heutnik are co-fifth grade teachers at Nooksack Elementary in the Nooksack Valley School District located in Northeast Washington.
After attending the Assessment for Learning Conference in 2001 Bruce and Joni returned to their school saying we’ll try this because the presenters said it works and [...]

Continue reading...

ETS ‘Assessment Training Institute’
Dylan Wiliam was our opening keynote on Tuesday.
Raising Achievement is Important
The personal: extended life and earnings, economic: more taxes paid and less money spent on health care and societal reasons: lower criminal justice costs, impact all of us and should be reason enough to raise student achievement.
Raising Achievement Requires Improving Teacher Quality
We [...]

Continue reading...

ETS “Assessment for Learning” Conference
Portland, Oregon
July 13-15, 2009
from the conference handout:
Damian Cooper is an independent consultant who works across Canad and the United States helping schools and school districts improve their instructional and assessment skills. He spent many years as a teacher, working in academic environments, vocational settings, and school serving students with severe learning [...]

Continue reading...

Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs & Dr. Rick Stiggins presented simulataneously on the topic. The following statements are some of the highlights.
The wrong people meet to discuss what’s best for students – high school departments meet almost exclusively – instead everyone who teaches 9th grade should be in a room together, not by departments.
Jacobs: every single [...]

Continue reading...

ETS Assessment Conference, Portland Oregon, July 2009
All content in this post comes directly from Ken O’Connor’s presentation. Each statement came from a slide or is an anecdote that he shared.
Ken O’Connor is an independent consultant on assessment, grading, and reporting. He has been a staff development presenter and facilitator in for states in the USA, [...]

Continue reading...

At the 16th Annual ETS Summer Conference in Portland, Oregon, I had the opportunity to attend two breakout sessions by noted consultant Ken O’Connor.  During both sessions, Ken did a masterful job of articulating the distinction between formative and summative assessment in the classroom.  According to Ken, there are six “musts” or “demands” that educators need to understand regarding classroom assessment of [...]

Continue reading...

ETS “Assessment for Learning” Conference
July 13 – 15, 2009
Myron Dueck, and educator with 15 years in education in Manitoba, New Zealand, and British Columbia described his own experiences in implementing non-traditional assessment and grading strategies. He shared many classroom examples and stories while addressing a variety of topics which included, no “zeroes”, linking standardized outcomes [...]

Continue reading...