In recent months, I’ve been growing more and more concerned about the ways in which folks tend to confuse the words testing and assessment. I also have some substantial concerns about what people are calling rubrics these days and the purposes for using them–but I’ll save that for another post. For the next week or so, I’ll be trying to articulate where I am in the progress of my own learning around the topic of…
Just a quick post on the fly this morning, really–but one that I’ve been formulating in my head for some time now. I’ve spent a good portion of this fall working with over 150 teachers of grades 3-12 who have been capturing formative assessment data about their students as writers during guided and independent practice. They have also been gathering information and reflecting on their instructional practices as teachers of writing. Just this week, they’ve…
Just as teachers rely upon a gradual release of responsibility model to ensure effective instruction, many coaches begin moving toward similar models once they’ve established agreed-upon learning targets for their efforts with teachers. I was first introduced to this model through my study of Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey’s work and then again when I was exposed to Jeff Wilhelm’s kid-friendly version in one of my favorite texts, Reading is Seeing. As a coach, I…
Carol left a comment on yesterday’s post which left me thinking again about vision and action. I’ve written about this before, because in my experience this is as essential as it is complex. Defining literacy is no easy task, and articulating a vision for supporting the development of it within a district is a tremendous collaborative effort. In the beginning, coaching experiences can help teachers define what they are eager to know and accomplish for…
Literacy Coaching is relatively new to our region, and while schools outside of our area may have established coaching models long ago, the opportunity to support teachers in this capacity is something that many districts in our area are just beginning to make happen. It’s exciting to be on the ground floor of this work in WNY. This week’s strand of posts have been written at the request of teachers and administrators who are interested…
One of the things that I am most excited about this year is returning to my work as a literacy coach. Over time, I’ve found myself doing fewer and fewer single-event workshops and devoting more time to sustained initiatives like coaching because they provide me the opportunity to create consistent, job-embedded learning opportunities for teachers without removing them from their classrooms. I find that coaching keeps me grounded as well. The strategies and practices that…
So…….as I was chatting with Alyssa and Sarah last weekend, they spoke to what many of us call authentic learning. Of course, they didn’t use that phraseology–they spoke in their native tongue, describing how some of what kids are asked to do in school is “boring” or “rushed” or “just for a grade”. They weren’t exactly giving their work with me great props either (just in case you thought I was getting off easy), and…
Jenn tipped some of us off to the official word on this last night. Read more at her place, and share your thoughts in the comments. Lots to digest and plan for there.
Know what I’ve been rediscovering over the last few days? Developing a useful analytic rubric that produces valid information is challenging. Really. Challenging. I’m going to guess that anyone who has been charged with the task of designing such rubric knows the level of frustration thinking to which I refer. In fact, I’m realizing that I probably grapple with rubric writing more than any other type of writing I do. I also know that I’m…
“Responding to students’ papers is like composing, like looking at the mess of my experience and ideas and trying to tease some patterns and order out of it. When I’m responding, really responding to a student’s mess of a paper, I’m thinking like a writer: figuring out what I have to say about the paper, and what the audience (the writer) likely will think/feel/do if I say it like this. Or if I say it…