Formative Pain in the Assessment

 
This month marks a special anniversary for me.  It’s been 4 years since I started using the Developmental Reading Assessment (from Pearson) in my classroom.  Back then I was bright-eyed and full of undirected/misdirected teaching energy.  I accidentally signed up for a PD day that “trained” me on how to administer the DRA.  That accident [...]

Becoming one-teacher-at-a-time-ish…

     Happy FIFTH Snow Day to me…
    I finished One Teacher at a Time last week (first post here), while at the same time dipping my toe into the criterion-based assessment waters in both Math ( a unit on fractions) and Science (a unit on force and motion).  I started by setting up class lists with [...]

Shifty Paradigms

 
Last Wednesday I spent a few hours at my ISD with other 3-5 teachers listening to Jane E. Pollack, author of, most recently, One Teacher at a Time.  I thought I was just going to hear a little about standards-based report cards.  Instead, I had my entire practice challenged.  Yes, it was one of those [...]

Assessment That Doesn’t Suck

I’m happily plopped on a friend’s couch in Seattle, trying to enjoy the last few days of winter break, but needing to look ahead to the next six months at the same time.  I hate multitasking.  I pulled out my work bag early in the a.m. and started scoring this groovy little assessment I had [...]