Move over Kid President, how about Kid Superintendent!

Check out this awesome idea started by @rock_supt in the Rockwood School District... sorry Kid President, perhaps it's time for you to move over! :)

"I want to find someone who can help me with an important mission," says Dr. Knost. "We need a voice - a Rockwood Kid Superintendent - to be the ambassador for the 21,500 students in Rockwood."

Read the entire post on Rockwood's website about how a student can be the student representative for the Rockwood School District: http://goo.gl/oqKLwC 

What an awesome idea! Hopefully by sharing this, other districts will start their search for their first Kid Superintendent.

Accountability: Do we mean the same thing?

So, the word accountability is thrown around a lot in education, but the more I hear the word, the more I think we are really saying different things...

For example, teacher A wants to teach students accountability by holding firm to strict deadlines. Teacher A also does not allow redos and retakes because he/she thinks this is preparing kids for the harshness and reality of the real-world since redos and retakes aren't allowed. Teacher A believes firmly in designing assessments and activities that are hard (not necessarily rigorous) and thinks there should be some students who get high grades and other students who get low grades. Teacher A makes accountability a teacher vs. student enterprise and expects that students will naturally want to learn anything and everything just because he/she said so.

This is what teacher A believes is accountability...

Teacher B, on the other hand, wants to teach students accountability by holding them accountable to their own learning. Teacher B allows redos and retakes because he/she thinks learning is a process and sometimes there are ups and downs in this process. Teacher B acknowledges that redos and retakes are allowed in the real-world, and that for students, their everyday life is their 'real-world.' Teacher B also believes in designing and engineering highly challenging and rigorous learning experiences with appropriate levels of support. Teacher B holds his/her kids accountable by not allowing them to do anything but their best work and by not accepting anything less than their best. Teacher B put kids in charge of their progress and empowers them to own their learning.

This is what teacher B believes is accountability...


So, which teacher are you?

Let's make formative assessing a top priority

In our undergraduate courses we all learned about summative and formative assessing. We've also all been to conferences or events that have emphasized the importance of many small assessments to drive our instruction rather than waiting until the end when it may be too late.

http://goo.gl/uGxor1

Though I think this has all been with good intention, we may have been missing the most important part of formative assessing and feedback.

See, when we focus on this more timely and frequent feedback to change and adjust our instruction, we are focusing on the teacher side of things.

The true beauty and value of more frequent and timely assessments is not just to help guide and drive our instruction, it's to provide frequent and timely feedback for our students so they can take more ownership and control over their learning.

As Marzano so simply stated, "The most powerful single innovation that enhances achievement is feedback."

Flip the scenario... why would any teacher want to use frequent formative assessments?

They are looking for feedback and input to help guide and drive their instruction to hopefully improve student learning.

Now, while we are on the topic of formative assessments, I want to make a few things clear about what formative assessing really is:

Formative assessments are fluid and flow seamlessly in the learning process because they are a part of the learning process. Most situations involving formative assessing are not and shouldn't be for a grade. Formative assessing is similar to what happens in real-life, thus students and their learning won't even skip a beat.

Formative assessing would be like going to the doctor for a preventative check-up and finding out you have high blood pressure. At this check-up you would get feedback and input on how to lower your blood pressure. Formative assessments keep you off the autopsy table when it's too late to fix or prevent the damage.

Formative assessing is about goal-setting and the ownership of the learning process for students via feedback and input both from the teacher and from the students themselves.

Lastly, formative assessing DOES NOT need to be a traditional type of assessment. It can be something as simple as a thumbs up or down activity or a quick scan of the classroom to check student body language and demeanor. DO NOT think you need to have a quantifiable number spreadsheet to do a formative assessment.

Do yourself a favor and most importantly, do your students a favor by utilizing more formative assessments.

Check out these links with several examples of formative assessments:

54 examples for formative assessments via David Wees

Formative assessment techniques to check understanding

Formative assessment strategies