A few words about formative assessment...

Formative assessment is emerging as one of the most important practices educators use to increase student achievement. Leading researchers Black and Wiliam in an article published in the Phi Delta Kappan, “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment“ state,

“We start from the self-evident proposition that teaching and learning must be interactive. Teachers need to know about their pupils' progress and difficulties with learning so that they can adapt their own work to meet pupils' needs -- needs that are often unpredictable and that vary from one pupil to another. Teachers can find out what they need to know in a variety of ways, including observation and discussion in the classroom and the reading of pupils' written work. We use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers -- and by their students in assessing themselves -- that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs.”
http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kbla9810.htm

I know that when I was in the classroom I felt there was no way I could give this kind of testing. How in the world would I ever find that much time? Assessment Center makes this a manageable practice. Assessments can be created in a matter of a few minutes, and students can take them during class, in their study times, or at home. It quickly becomes a part of what students expect in your class.

The reports contained in Assessment Center give you the option of looking at individual students or an entire class performance. With the results of the assessment in hand, you can decide if a skill needs to be revisited with the entire class or with a group of students. The entire testing and report analysis might be used as part of a review process. If you ask just a few questions on each skill, you will know in a matter of minutes where you need to focus your review. It is frequently the case that every student has mastered parts of what is going to be tested; knowing what skills remain to be mastered allows the teacher the opportunity to work on those skills.

Black and Wiliam conclude: “There is a body of firm evidence that formative assessment is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement.”

If you haven't already started using Assessment Center, and would like some help getting started, send your project leader an email. It's easy to get started, and it is a great time to use Assessment Center.

Jim Lippold
Skills Iowa Project Leader
jlippold@ia-sb.org

So Much to Do,So Little Time: A Skills Iowa Welcome

I’m sitting in my office in Des Moines where I have worked for the last seven years or so. Because I’m the first contributor to the Skills Iowa blog, I thought I’d better prepare by remembering my days in the classroom. The days when I watched kids figure out an important reading or math concept and had to choke back tears of happiness, so the kids wouldn’t think I was crazy. The days when I didn’t get to drink a Diet Coke when I really needed one. The days when I thought I would probably get the plague from one of my kids who was perfectly healthy when he came to school at 8 a.m. and threw up on me at 9. The days when my room was a complete disaster and I was so exhausted I couldn’t stand up and it was only noon. As exhausting as teaching is and was, I miss it, and I know how hard you work. I want you to know that I believe the work you are doing is the most important in America. If you fail, we fail as a country. So thanks for your commitment to this very hard and important work.

My friend Kate wore a sweatshirt 20 years ago that said this: “So many books… so little time.” You’ve all seen that phrase. Think about it related to your professional life. “So much responsibility, so many needs, so many expectations….so little time.” A new reading series to learn how to use, practicing the strategies you’re learning in professional development, collaborating with your team, meeting with parents, pulling your share of duties – those and the myriad other things on your plate all take a lot of time.

So the question becomes, “How on earth can we expect teachers to add something like Skills Iowa?” But then I thought of the amazing teachers I’ve talked to across this state who, despite their overwhelming work loads, say things like, “Assessment Center helped me realize the small group of students who needed some extra instruction in inferences.” Or another teacher who said, “I assign lessons I know my students need practice in and it frees me up to provide instruction to small groups while the others tend to their needs on the computer.” Or the principal who said, “This gives me a chance to get quick looks at how students are doing on our big, important concepts.”

While it might seem impossible on some days to add yet another thing, I invite you to think of Skills Iowa as tools that will help you do your important work – not add-ons. I’m not completely nuts – I know it takes time to learn how to use the tools, to assign lessons, to study results. But once you become adept at those tasks, I hope Skills Tutor and Assessment Center will help you understand the diverse learning needs of the students in your class rooms and then help you meet those needs. If you have time, take a minute to share with us how you’re using Skills Iowa to improve student learning in your classes, would you?

As a sidenote: To the left of this text, you'll notice a section called "Web Resources." As I come across items of interest you can access on the Web, that's where I'll stick them. To get us started, I have included the following URLs:

Here’s the Skills Iowa Web site. It contains important documents related to the program, tips, and links to other good sites: www.ia-sb.org/skillsiowa/

As you work on assigning lessons and assessing learning, here is a link to information about the Iowa Core Curriculum. There are model lessons and other resources that you might find useful, as well as an emerging consensus on what a group of education stakeholders think all students in Iowa should know and be able to do in literacy, mathematics, and science with social studies and 21st century learning skills to be added soon. www.iowa.gov/educate/content/view/674/1249/

I love Wikipedia. It’s an online free encyclopedia that anybody can edit. Tons of interesting factoids and a way to see how knowledge changes and grows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

The Albert Shanker Institute provides all kinds of thoughtful writing about teaching and teachers: www.shankerinstitute.org/education.html

Time magazine wrote about teachers in the Wed., Feb. 13 edition. Read what they had to say:
www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1713174,00.html

Here’s a site at the University of Oklahoma Law School that provides the original text of some very interesting historical documents and links to others: www.law.ou.edu/hist/

According to Education Week, “This site from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) includes more than 2,600 video and audio clips from faculty lectures, as well assignments and lecture notes. Some of that material is assembled on the site for specific high school classes, such as Advanced Placement biology, calculus, and physics, which are college-preparatory courses. But the online portal also allows high school teachers to search by topic for faculty lectures and assignments and use them as they see fit.”
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm

Enjoy!

Susie Olesen
Educational Improvement Director
Iowa Association of School Boards
6000 Grand Avenue
Des Moines, Iowa 50312-1417
(515) 288-1991, ext. 222
(515) 247-7022 (Direct)
1-800-795-4272, ext. 222
Cell: (641) 745-5284
FAX: (515) 243-4992
http://www.ia-sb.org/