Get to know which practices related to curriculum, instruction, and assessment are essential to make learning the goal for every student! You’ll learn how to Create learning targets that are scalable and transferable within and across units Develop instructional scales for each learning target Design non-scored practice activities and assessments Introduce and model skills that will be assessed and design tasks that allow students to use these skills Differentiate instruction and activities based on data from various types of assessments Maintain a gradebook that tracks summative achievement of learning targets, and score assessments accordingly Communicate progress clearly and efficiently with students and families
Learn everything you need to know to implement an integrated system of assessment and grading. The author details the specific benefits of formative assessment and explains how to design and interpret three different types of formative assessments, how to track student progress, and how to assign meaningful grades. Detailed examples bring each concept to life, and chapter exercises reinforce the content.
Learn how to overcome the knowing-doing gap in standards-based learning systems, and move toward unpacking the standards and learning targets your students need.
What's the best way to ensure that grading policies are fair, accurate, and consistent across classrooms? How can schools transition to a grading system that better reflects what students are actually learning? Tim R. Westerberg makes this journey easier by offering a continuum of options, with four "destinations" on the road to improved grading and assessment. Destination 1 critically examines such popular grading mechanisms as the zero, extra credit, the "semester killer" project, averaging, mixing academic performance with work ethic, and refusing to accept late work, and explains how they undermine objectivity and instead result in widely divergent grades for comparable work--with major consequences for students. Destination 2 invites educators to put assessment and grading into the larger context of a districtwide guaranteed and viable curriculum and lays out the organizational conditions and necessary steps to accomplish this goal. Destination 3 brings parents and others on board with a multiyear implementation plan and community engagement strategies for introducing report cards that indicate student achievement by standards rather than--or in addition to--letter grades. Destination 4, competency-based education, involves a total rethinking of the nature and structure of school, leading to individualized education for all students. However far they choose to go, administrators and teacher leaders can turn to Charting a Course to Standards-Based Grading for the quick wins and long-term support and guidance they need to make the trip well worth the effort.
Shifting to standards-based learning is a big change. Rely on Planning and Teaching in the Standards-Based Classroom to help you move forward with clarity and confidence. Authors Jeff Flygare, Jan K. Hoegh, and Tammy Heflebower have created a must-have guide for teachers that delivers straightforward, practical tools and detailed instructions for everything from lesson planning to proficiency scales to parent communication. Understand priority standards and proficiency scales. Develop curriculum maps to plan for the entire year or course. Follow the steps of the instructional cycle to create standards-based units and lessons. Help exceptional students continue to thrive and grow in a standards-based environment. Communicate objectively with students and families about learning. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Curriculum Based on Standards and Scales Chapter 2: Year-Long Planning With Curriculum Maps Chapter 3: Unit Planning With the Instructional Cycle Chapter 4: Lesson Planning and Teaching Within the Instructional Cycle Chapter 5: Assessments and Progress Tracking Chapter 6: Communication Using Proficiency Scales Epilogue
In spite of the proliferation of online learning, creating online courses can still evoke a good deal of frustration, negativity, and wariness in those who need to create them. The second edition of Essentials of Online Course Design takes a fresh, thoughtfully designed, step-by-step approach to online course development. At its core is a set of standards that are based on best practices in the field of online learning and teaching. Pedagogical, organizational, and visual design principles are presented and modeled throughout the book, and users will quickly learn from the guide’s hands-on approach. The course design process begins with the elements of a classroom syllabus which, after a series of guided steps, easily evolve into an online course outline. The guide’s key features include: a practical approach informed by theory clean interior design that offers straightforward guidance from page one clear and jargon-free language examples, screenshots, and illustrations to clarify and support the text a checklist of online course design standards that readers can use to self-evaluate. a Companion Website with examples, adaptable templates, interactive learning features, and online resources: http://essentialsofonlinecoursedesign.com Essentials of Online Course Design serves as a best practice model for designing online courses. After reading this book, readers will find that preparing for online teaching is a satisfying and engaging experience. The core issue is simply good design: pedagogical, organizational, and visual. For more of Marjorie Vai in her own words, listen to this 2011 interview from the On Teaching Online podcast: http://onteachingonline.com/oto-16-essentials-of-online-course-design-with-marjorie-vai/
Accurately report students’ academic strengths and weaknesses with standards-based grading. Rather than using traditional systems that incorporate nonacademic factors such as attendance and behavior, learn to assess and report student performance based on prioritized standards. You will discover reliable, practical methods for analyzing what students have learned and gain effective strategies for offering students feedback on their progress.
In this completely revised and updated edition of Susan Drake's classic text on integrated curriculum, the author provides a new approach to standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide provides a practical, streamlined approach for creating effective learning experiences by blending online activities and the best of face-to-face teaching. This guide is: Easy to use: Clear, jargon-free writing; illustrations; and references to online resources help readers understand concepts. Streamlined: A simple but effective design process focuses on creating manageable activities for the right environment. Practical: Real-world examples from different subject areas help teachers understand principles in context. Contemporary: The variety of modern, connected technologies covered in the guide addresses a range of teaching challenges. Forward-Looking: The approach bridges the gap between formal classroom learning and informal lifelong learning. Standards-based: Guidelines and standards are based on current research in the field, relevant learning theories, and practitioner experiences. Effective blended learning requires significant rethinking of teaching practices and a fundamental redesign of course structure. Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide simplifies these difficult challenges without neglecting important opportunities to transform teaching. This guide is suitable for teachers in any content area. Please visit www.essentialsforblended.com for additional resources.
