Archive for the ‘Assessment’ Category
Sunday, May 19th, 2013
My headline is in lots of ways misleading for there is no one right way to learn to spell efficiently in English.
In the 60's and 70's we made students learn to spell lists of words through repetition or drill with lots of rules thrown in and then in the Donald ...
Posted in Assessment, differentiation, Instruction, Teaching | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, September 4th, 2012
Last month David Rease Jnr from Harvard visited Elsternwick to view our progress in implementing the Data Wise: Inquiry Approach to Improving Instruction in schools. We were quite chuffed at David's visit and recorded this clip to capture some of his initial observations and reflections.
As you will hear he commented on ...
Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Data Wise Program, Harvard, Instruction, Instructional Rounds, school, Video Clips | No Comments »
Sunday, September 2nd, 2012
Over recent weeks I have pondering concerns raised by teachers and a few parents on the use of data to report to parents (summative assessment).
Last week three of my staff attended a briefing on the new National Curriculum due to be implemented in 2013. Most of the questions raised ...
Posted in Assessment, school, Teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Sunday, June 10th, 2012
At a recent regional Principal conference I heard Vic Zbar, an educational consultant based in Victoria; speak about personalising teaching and learning. Personalising learning he put it was really an outcome of differentiation.
Vic then made a number of points I thought worth repeating:
There is generally too much whole class teaching ...
Posted in Accountability, Assessment, differentiation, Geelong Conference, Instruction, school, teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, March 15th, 2012
Last week I was privileged to spend 3 days interacting with James Nottingham and others around the topic of life long learning. He made to me some valuable points worth exploring a little further.
"tests show only what a child has learnt to that point and nothing else" Binet 1857 - 1911
James ...
Posted in Assessment, Conference, school, Teaching, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Ever been to a professional learning workshop or presentation and felt discomfort, challenged, empowered and an overwhelming sense relief all at the same time? Well I have several times (lucky me some might say) and this session led by Everett Kline on assessment at the2011 ASCD summer conference in ...
Posted in 2011 ASCD Conference, Assessment, Feedback, Instruction, Teaching | 2 Comments »
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
This year in our Instructional Rounds group within the local network of schools we purchased Carol Tomlinson's book "Leading and Managing A Differentiated Classroom" to use as a base text for understanding our observation of instruction in classrooms.
Last year I was privileged to attend the ASCD Summer Conference in Boston ...
Posted in 2011 ASCD Conference, Assessment, differentiation, Instruction, Leadership, Teaching, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
I recently read a blog post by Jenny Luca which was critical of the way universities select entrants based on a single score. In Victoria the score is called an ATAR score. The post attracted a few comments saying it was a little better in the States where they use other measures ...
Posted in Assessment, Family | No Comments »
Monday, July 11th, 2011
Last month I was fortunate to hear Mark Treadwell [pictured above] speak to a group of aspirant leaders I am mentoring. He had some I think important things to say about learning and I think leadership.
He began the morning making the case for a new paradigm shift for learning. He quoted the ...
Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Instruction, school, Teaching, Technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Over the past 2 months we have focused on preparing our teachers to differentiate instruction.
I'm writing this post to explain to readers within my own community why this emphasis on preparation and why we need to adopt three different strategies at the same time to gain the improvement in student ...
Posted in Accountability, Assessment, coaching, Collaborative Communities, differentiation, Instruction, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
