Our Favorite Ten Letter Word

Today's post is brought to you by Andrea Reichenberger.

Assessment. Our favorite ten letter word fills a teacher with excitement or dread depending on the context. Okay, maybe “excitement” isn't the right word...

For the past year, we have been focusing a lot of time and energy on our school assessments.  Of course we have discussed the mandated assessments, but I’m steering away from those in this post. As we began stripping down the topic of assessment at the building level, we realized there was a serious disconnect between what and how we were assessing. The reality is, if our daily instruction isn't up to par and we aren't using daily formative assessments to drive our instruction and to provide feedback, we aren't going to see positive results on those mandated assessments no matter what they may be or how many of them there are.

We are diligent in our work toward becoming standards based, which is a topic all of its own. As educators and coaches, we should be introspective about our own learning and philosophy in regards to assessment. It isn't an easy concept to grasp and for some,it is a huge shift in mindset. Beginning these conversations also requires us to be mindful of the separation between assessment and grading.

If you are stuck and trying to get those assessment conversations started in your own school, start following Rick Wormeli on Twitter @RickWormeli.  He also just started a new blog and when I say new I mean he only has two posts http://rickwormeli.net/ but he also has some very informative and well presented YouTube videos on formative and summative assessment. http://youtu.be/rJxFXjfB_B4.  

Consequently, we created an assessment checklist to aid our teachers in their design or revision. Our intention was for them to look at their summative assessments, but we feel the tool also helps guide their thinking about the formative as well.  It is a living document and we have already revised it several times but we feel it is a good starting point.

The assessment checklist developed by Andrea's school can be viewed AT THIS LINK

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, we would love to hear them!