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Inside the black box

Inside the black box

Dylan Wiliam – Formative Assessment – The Masterplan The first of a series of notes / reflections on sessions at the 2010 SSAT National Conference. Bio Dylan Wiliam has the grand title of ‘Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment‘ at the Institute of Education in London. He is a former Maths teacher and co-author of the book “Inside the Black Box“. He is a world renowned expert on assessment for learning, and was recently to be seen on BBC television in The Classroom Experiment. My Notes On learning environments & the role of the teacher: Teachers do not create learning. On intelligence & environment: Intelligence is partly inherited. On flow: Flow = match between challenge and capability. On assessment: Pre tests. 5 key strategies in teaching: On feedback & questioning: Middle class kids ‘get the code’, working class are no less intelligent just don’t get what we want. Plan questions carefully to elicit understanding, not incorrect methods that are resulting in right answers. Wait time for questioning. Key points: Cause thinking.

Educational Leadership:Effective Grading Practices:Grade Inflation: Killing with Kindness? In the 1880s, Harvard University adopted a new approach to evaluating student work that would sweep the United States and become as integral a part of the education landscape as blackboards, number 2 pencils, and yellow buses: the letter grade. Just one decade later, though, some Harvard professors were already grousing that "in the present practice Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily—Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity" (Lewis, 2006, p. 115). They fretted that if the outside world knew what kind of "sham work" passed for high marks at the venerable institution, Harvard's degree would be "seriously cheapened" (p. 115). Hand-wringing about grade inflation has continued ever since. Not Your Parents' A? Recent data have a new generation of critics worrying that today's high school grades may not be what they once were: Are Concerns Overblown? Why Does It Occur? Should We Care? References Bursuck, W., Polloway, E. Lewis, H. Twenge, J.

r-assessment-for-learning-2013.pdf Classroom Assessment | Basic Concepts - Nightly A. Formative vs. Summative Assessments Classroom assessments can include a wide range of options -- from recording anecdotal notes while observing a student to administering standardized tests. The options can be roughly divided into two categories -- formative assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments are on-going assessments, reviews, and observations in a classroom. Summative assessments are typically used to evaluate the effectiveness of instructional programs and services at the end of an academic year or at a pre-determined time. The following table highlights some formative and summative assessments that are common in K12 schools.

Free Reading Comprehension Practice Test Questions 1 through 7 refer to the following passage: In the 16th century, an age of great marine and terrestrial exploration, Ferdinand Magellan led the first expedition to sail around the world. As a young Portuguese noble, he served the king of Portugal, but he became involved in the quagmire of political intrigue at court and lost the king's favor. A papal decree of 1493 had assigned all land in the New World west of 50 degrees W longitude to Spain and all the land east of that line to Portugal. One ship deserted while in this passage and returned to Spain, so fewer sailors were privileged to gaze at that first panorama of the Pacific Ocean. Later, Magellan became involved in an insular conflict in the Philippines and was killed in a tribal battle. 1. A. cosmic B. land C. mental D. common man E. 2. A. entanglement B. discussion C. negotiation D. problem E. 3. A. north and south B. crosswise C. easterly D. south east E. north and west 4. 5. 6. A. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. A. 13.

AfL tools The purpose of AfL is to develop your pupils as self-regulated learners including the ability to self-assess their work and to become motivated to work independently. Pupils need to become partners with you in managing learning and assessment. Some tools for driving this agenda include: Transparency and engagement In medium-term planning of a unit of work, focus on the big ideas, the key concepts within the subject, underpinning the topic. As a teacher, critically consider the learning objectives for your lessons and consider distinguishing this clearly from the case study or context. The most common step that teachers miss out is the opportunity for pupils to improve their work in response to feedforward. Questioning The main message here is to plan your questions because that is a powerful way to raise the focused learning outcomes for pupils from your lessons. Overall you should aim to raise the level of thinking required by your classroom questions. From feedback to feedforward

What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? | Scholastic.com - Nightly "Informative assessment isn't an end in itself, but the beginning of better instruction." —Carol Ann Tomlinson Traditionally, we have used assessments to measure how much our students have learned up to a particular point in time. This is called "assessment of learning" — or what we use to see whether our students are meeting standards set by the state, the district, or the classroom teacher. Since formative assessments are considered part of the learning, they need not be graded as summative assessments (end-of-unit exams or quarterlies, for example) are. When I work with teachers during staff development, they often tell me they don't have time to assess students along the way. Formative assessments, however, do not have to take an inordinate amount of time. Using a Variety of Formative Assessments The National Forum on Assessment (1995) suggests that assessment systems include opportunities for both individual and group work. Types of Assessment Strategies Exit Cards Thomas R.

Reading Passages | Sample Reading Questions: Passage 5 Click on the letter choices to determine if you have the correct answer and for question explanations. An actual ACT Reading Test contains 40 questions to be answered in 35 minutes. DIRECTIONS: There are several passages in this test. Each passage is accompanied by several questions. Passage V LITERARY NARRATIVE: Passage A is adapted from the essay “In Orbit” by Brenda Miller (©2011 by Brenda Miller). Passage A by Brenda Miller July 20, 1969: I’m running in a wide circle at the far end of the cul-de-sac, around and around until I settle in the dust under a thorny bush, but then my name floats into the game, calling me back as dusk 5 descends on the neighborhood. Somehow we’re going to see it. Everyone is sitting quiet, watching, forks in midair—I can see the profile of my father’s jaw, my 30 mother’s small shoulders—and just at that moment, I decide to clank my fork on the edge of my plate, to make a loud noise that will penetrate the vast silence in which this man now moves. Correct!

MEI > Teachers > Contextualisation Toolkit Contextualising post-16 GCSE Mathematics: A toolkit for practitioners This resource is designed for teaching practitioners involved in planning and delivering post-16 GCSE Mathematics, including both specialist maths teaching practitioners and vocational teaching practitioners who wish to embed maths in their delivery. The toolkit encourages these practitioners to make greater use of contexts in their delivery of post-16 GCSE Mathematics. It supports them in developing and using their own contextualised resources and encourages them to share their resources and to adapt and use resources that others have developed. The toolkit has been developed with funding from the Department for Education and in partnership with the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. Please use the link below to view a recording of the webinar which introduces the toolkit: Webinar - March 2015 The Toolkit About the toolkit Developing Contextualised Teaching and Learning Resources Exemplar resources

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