Classroom Formative Assessment

I really appreciate these days of learning.  Having everyone in one room helps share the message.   We are better able to begin speaking the same language.  The questions and conversations that I have had the pleasure of participating in, are so helpful and just make me think and think and think. 

I’m sending the parking lot from the last day of training by email, and here are the questions/comments I want to talk about at this stage of the game.

1. There are lots of questions that will be addressed in the next three days.  I am thinking particularly of questions like
   1. I want to know how to teach metacognition
   2. More strategies on how to make kids learners
   3. How to engage students to become better thinkers of their thinking
   4. How do we clearly define what objectives and targets are?
   5. I want more strategies
2. Grading and report cards.  I have very deliberately avoided dealing with changing report cards until we have changed the way we grade, and we can’t change the way we grade until teachers have acquired a practice that will replace the current function of grades.  It is no accident that the chapter about report cards in Classroom Assessment for Student Learning is one of the last chapters in the book.  Let’s have this discussion when we’ve completed the training.  There are lots of resources out there now that we can use to move us forward.  I believe we are starting in the right place.
3. If this is so important, will all teachers receive this training?  The simple answer to that is yes, but I don’t know yet how it will happen.  It feels like a big move forward to me that we are doing this training, and at the same time I don’t want to do anything that implies that once we are done with these four days, there’s nothing else to do.  Therefore, this will have to be an ongoing discussion with principals and their leadership teams, because almost all work of implementation will be done at the building level.  And the truth is, all schools ARE embarked on this work in one way or another.  Some are explicitly studying CASL, others are working on clarity of target, but all principals have been very involved in discussion about how to move their buildings forward.  It just isn’t always explicit how their current professional development plan connects with classroom formative assessment, and I hope that principals will take the opportunity to discuss with the teachers whom they have brought to the training about whether it should be more explicit or whether that would muddy the waters at their schools.  It’s a great question about clarity of target…
4. What is the connection between this training and the instructional model?  I addressed that question directly on my blog: click here.  My blog is FULL of thoughts about formative assessment, so PLEASE take the time to look through it sometime.  The link to the blog itself is http://isobelstevenson.edublogs.org/
5. How do I motivate unmotivated students?  I have SO MUCH to say about this, so I’m working on a separate post.  Again, there are lots of good resources out there about this, so please let me know if you want specific questions answered or want to talk about it more.

I am very excited about the next day of training coming up!

Ian has added all the attendees at the first day of training, so we are all set.  So I am hoping there are very few glitches left and that teachers will start writing about their experience with classroom formative assessment.

I met with my team yesterday, and it’s clear from hearing their reports of table discussions that different schools are in different places, and we really want to support teachers wherever they are.

I’m really looking forward to reading what experiences people have in trying to implement this practice, and I’m going to ask that teachers who’ve had previous exposure to this training and the implementation start writing about what they’ve done… You know who you are.