One of our 4th grade teachers uses a “graffiti wall” to assess students’ knowledge of content such as identifying figurative language, text structure, and main idea. I have also utilized this strategy with Social Studies content. Use chart paper or the whiteboard as a space for students to respond to a topic or question. I have most often…Read More

Kahn Academy is a great resource our Middle School teachers are very fond of given our participation in a grant utilizing the PSAT to measure progress. This provides an individualized path for students to progress through skills.

One resource that teachers in my school utilize is the website Prodigy. The site has over 1200 math skills for grades 1 – 8. Students have avatars in a virtual world and compete against each other but must first correctly answer math related questions.

In my paperless classroom I utilize Google Apps for Education every day. Google Classroom is our “home” where they receive and submit their work. Google Forms is great for assessments, especially now because they have a lock down browser enabled to prevent cheating. I am also a big fan of Google Drawings which allows students to get creative with…Read More

I run a paperless classroom in all of my courses including Advanced Placement World History. I have found Fiveable and Get A Five have both been great for students to be able to learn concepts. They incorporate videos and assessments for students, which are instrumental in student success because our content ranges from the dawn of mankind to…Read More

A resource that I would like to start incorporating into my classroom is PearDeck. I had not heard of it until a training a couple weeks ago. It is a Google app that allows you to have interactive Google slide presentations and embedded assessments. Students are given a code to enroll and participate. It is to my understanding that other students…Read More

A resource that I use as well as several other teachers at my school is quizlet.com . This site allows you to create vocabulary “cards” for the topic of study. Then you provide students a link and they can use it to study as flashcards, write them, spell them, and/or do a practice test. You can also provide a given code with quizlet live and the…Read More

Resource

One resource that has been extremely helpful to my classes this year (and one I had not explored yet) has been Google Classroom. With the on-demand writing test moved online, Google Classroom has allowed students to get in much needed typing practice and has made one-on-one work much simpler for myself. When I create a new assignment,…Read More

Resource.
I have been a big proponent of case studies throughout my teaching career, as it develops students’ understanding of content through their own research and active problem solving skills. The following link is for a data base of case studies related to the subject of science. These are great and students actually enjoy them.…Read More

Resource #1
My teachers have been using quizizz.com and they love this resource. It has quizzes that are already created by other educators as well as the option to create your own quiz. I also have been using this with my teachers in our weekly interactive agendas and they log in and answer their questions for me.

We, as a school and our literacy team in particular, have been looking for the best way to keep student writing folders with writing samples. In the past there have been those paper folders that follow the student along and materials are added each year. This year we have tried to develop electronic writing folders that can also follow the student…Read More

I wanted to share a site that was shared with me concerning Kentucky’s academic standards. As many of you may already be aware, there is a site available to explore the newly adopted Kentucky Academic Standards (KAS) and standards resources. If you look on the “Explore your Standards” page, you will find a downloadable PDF and a critical fact…Read More

I tried to start my own challenge since so many are silly these days. I was calling it the Formative Assessment Challenge. You do a challenge then get pics of your students engaging in it and post online. Thought it would be a great way to share strategies with each other. I had a tiny bit of success but if anyone on here would like to…Read More

Someone said that the 8th and 10th On Demand was all online? Is this accurate?

I think I heard that the TCT’s were no longer being required to send to the state?? Is this accurate?

Achieve the Core (achievethecore.org) is an outstanding resource that shares free open-source resources to support common core implementation at all levels. It helps educators improve instruction and increase student achievement. The actual site has 3 tabs that include professional learning, planning and reflection and classroom resources (which…Read More

I have always found it difficult to understand the Common Core Math Standards. Sometimes I feel like I have no clue what the standard is asking for. Therefore, it makes it difficult to plan and assess. A book I have found super helpful this year is called, “The Common Core Mathematics Companion: Standards Decoded.” In this book it explains the…Read More

Here is a good resource for integrating formative assessments into your daily instruction and feedback. This PowerPoint “56 Examples of Formative Assessment” offers up some quick and easy formative assessments some using technology resources and others as easy as using the fingers on your hand. This is a great one to add to your “Teacher Toolb…Read More

A resource I wanted to share is called, “Visible Learning For Literacy.” I have always found it challenging to assess reading. It is different than assessing math. There are certain math problems students can work tied to a particular standard that can give you insight into whether or no students have master that standard. However, there are…Read More

https://ldc.org/

This is a great website to use for combing reading and writing in the content areas! Also, each module comes with a rubric for helping you assess student work/writing! I always find it hard to find the materials I am looking for to correctly assess student writing! This is a plus with this site!

Is a school’s attendance going to impact this year’s test scores? I remember hearing that average attendance would be taken into consideration when calculating performance.

I have a question about growth and the future growth projection. How is that determined/ calculated? I also thought I heard someone say that it is not a prediction…how is it not a prediction?

A great tool we utilize in our district and school is our district walk-through document and the ewalk website used during our daily classroom observations. We use this document to monitor classroom activity and teacher effectiveness. The website provides useful information and data that reflects what is happening in our classrooms. As the…Read More

One resource that has been extremely helpful for me in adjusting to standards based for grammar is the app zipgrade. I and the students get immediate results and it’s a great tool for data collection.
I have also recently looked into noredink as a great resource for English. It breaks down parts of language into various sections for students…Read More

“25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom” by Judith Dodge is a resource our principal introduced to the staff during a professional development meeting. This book is filled with various types of assessments that can be used and/or modified for any class or grade level. It never hurts to have multiple types of assessments in…Read More

A resource that I’ve used is “Uncovering Student Ideas in Science- 25 New Formative Assessment Probes” by lead author, Page Keeley. This book is volume 4 out of a series of books. This resource is labeled for all grades levels K-12. It is really easy to find a topic in the table of contents because it is categorized by science (life,…Read More

I’m new to 5th grade Social Studies this year and one thing that stood out to me immediately was the need for spiral review. With that in mind, we started using 180 Days of SOCIAL STUDIES for Fifth Grade. It seems so simple and worksheet like, but the students actually ask to have these as an assignment. They like that it is quick and they can…Read More

I am a paperless classroom so I utilize numerous resources that allow me to monitor and enhance engagement. All of the Google Apps for Education are fantastic. I like to use Google Drawings in my Integrated Social Studies course in order for students to present visuals of topics that we are discussing. Another resource that I use is Nearpod.…Read More

One of the many resources that we have used at Highland Turner that has been helpful has been the http://www.coretools.ldc.org for integration of writing through content classes. We also have used Jim Knights, High-Impact Instruction, A Framework for Great Teaching published by Corwin ISBN: 9781412981774. Both resources has been used to coach…Read More

A great resource we use at Allen Elementary is atlas.org. This is a site offered through the National Board Teacher Certification and provides a video bank of accomplished teaching for professional development opportunities for teachers. We utilize these video case studies once a month in PLC’s and target specific strategies for student…Read More

A resource I like to use is ReadWorks.org. This is a free site that offers K-12 reading passages and questions sets. They can be assigned to be completed on line or can be printed. You can search for fiction/non-fiction passages by grade level or lexile level. They include text-based multiple choice or short answer questions that are explicit and…Read More

One resource I enjoy is “Inquiry-Based Lessons in US History” by Jana Kirchner, Ph.D., and Andrew McMichael, Ph.D. (ISBN: 13:978-1-61821-423-2) This book lays out social studies lessons and points you in the direction of primary source documents that you can use. I find this to be a valuable tool to use with my 8th grade students, as they nee…Read More

Our school’s problem of practice includes specific, immediate corrective feedback. A resource I found includes a descriptive teacher feedback rubric that can be used by groups or individual teachers who want to improve their formative assessment practice: Using the Formative Assessment Rubrics, Reflection and Observation Tools to Support…Read More

I have two resources to share. (1) A book titled The Best Lesson Series: Literature, edited by Brian Sztabnik (ISBN – 978-0692531556). This book is available on Amazon. There are fifteen different, detailed lessons for making literature connections with your students. Near the beginning of the school year, I tried the first lesson about…Read More

I posted these questions in the accountability thread as well. When looking at the KDE assessments page, it says that the ACT will be administered to both grades 10 and 11 this year. Is that accurate? (It also says they’re trying to secure funding for that grade 10 administration.) Also, when looking at EOC information on the KDE assessment site,…Read More

Another question. When looking at the EOC requirements on the KDE page, it says that it is live for those on the early graduation pathway. What will we be doing for our current English II classes? Is there an EOC for this year?

I have a couple questions about the ACT. Will both sophomores and juniors be taking the test for accountability this year? Our curriculum coordinator showed us something that indicated that, and when looking at the ACT page on KDE, it says that they’re looking for funding for the administration of the test to sophomores. I don’t remember that…Read More

A tool I like to use for diagnostic testing in my algebra 1 class is
https://www.varsitytutors.com/algebra_1-practice-tests
It’s free and there are several different versions!

I wanted to share another resource ” Total Participation Techniques” Making Every Student an Active Learner by Himmele.
The book provides easy-to-use alternatives to the stand and deliver approach to teaching. It provides different ways to engage students in active learning and allow them to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge and…Read More

Wanted to share a resource- 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom.
This is a collection of quick, flexible, informal assessments that helps teachers take a snapshot of student learning. I was able to find the PDF version online of the entire book for FREE!…Read More

I was able to attend the Assessment and Accountability conference in Louisville and a there were a lot of questions about growth and how it will be calculated. They said they were meeting with a group of people to discuss growth. I was wondering if there were any proposed changes to the growth aspect of accountability?

One of my favorite books is “Better Learning Through Structured Teaching” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. It is focused around how to implement The Gradual Release of Responsibility Framework. The following section is one I would like to share from this text:

When teachers are gradually releasing responsibility to students, formative…Read More

Here are great tools that will allow you to give students immediate feedback and provide yourself with real-time data. I use these in my classroom on a regular basis! Great assessment tools!

1. Play a quick formative assessment game. There are lots of great techy options here. Kahoot!. Quizizz. Quizlet Live. The list goes on and on. If we want…Read More

Can we post questions here? I had a question about students who score distinguished? If they score distinguished one year and then the next how do they show growth?

News Article #2:

My Top 3 Formatives

There are many assessment practices that I use that have yielded tremendous benefits for students. I use formative assessments for quick, continual assessing of student learning. The purpose of formative assessments is to capture data to inform my instruction. It lets me know which students are struggling…Read More

News Article:

“When am I ever going to use this?”

The biggest question I hear more than I enjoy is, “When am I ever going to use this?” No teacher likes to hear this, especially when they’ve worked so hard to create notes, practice, and activities for that topic, and especially when the subject is the teacher’s passion. It’s almost insult…Read More

Our district uses MAP (Measures of Academic Progress). The MAP assessment allows an insight to our students growth compared to other students in the nation. Each child’s performance is compared to the National average of other students in the same grade level. Student profiles make the data easy to understand. The student progress reports o…Read More

In order to ensure that our students are provided a rich curriculum teachers will be assigned teaching roles in the area of their expertise and students will be grouped for reading and math based on their current level. All students will participate in uninterrupted RTI classes daily.

After viewing the Kentucky Uniform Academic Course Codes web page I feel our school’s biggest concern is a lot like the rest I’ve read on here. With all the cuts in funding facing education, onebof our schools biggest concerns is ensuring that all students have access to a rich curriculum as well as opportunities to provide intervention and enr…Read More

I teach 3rd grade math and use multiple formative assessments every single day. We use smart pals or white boards daily to review content and as a quick check for me to gauge their understanding to new content as well. Each of my math lessons end with an exit ticket. This helps me ensure that students are reaching mastery and fully…Read More