As promised, here are my answers to the questions asked at the latest round of classroom formative assessment training. Don’t like the answer? Have more to add? Please comment!
This was fun. What other questions do you have for me?
Where are we in the implementation of this model? What tools are available to promote this to others? With regard to the instructional model, I think we will always be implementing. There are some aspects of the model, like a district-wide approach to instruction at Tier One, that we are really cranking on. There are others, like consistency across the district at Tier Three, that we’ve not gotten very far with. With regard to classroom formative assessment, which is our district-wide approach to instruction at Tier One, see this post. With regard to tools, there are two major parts. One is the materials that principals and their teams have been provided through the classroom formative assessment training, and another is the training on school problem-solving teams that happens next week. The trick to problem-solving teams will be to see them as aligned with, or an extension of, other collaborative efforts that are going on in a school, which I’ve tried to represent here.
And of course, there is all the information on this blog, and there are articles I can send you…
What accountability measures are or will be in place to support building implementation of the instructional model? How are you going to hold teachers accountable for using the instructional model? Accountability implies to me something that is done to someone. What we are aiming for here is the construction of a system that is supported in a variety of ways–tools for teachers to use, interventions that are effective, professional development that helps teachers improve their skills, etc. If this is a system that makes sense, and if all components are aligned, then it is much more likely that it will be used, and used well. In addition,
When are we going to change the grading system to honor CFA? I have seen several different school districts change their grading system to be “standards based”. Every one of those I would consider compromised in some way– less than perfect because there were competing needs to be taken into consideration when deciding on the new system, including those who didn’t want to change at all. The goal in our district is to change the system not because we want it to be standards-based, but because it no longer meets the needs of teachers, students, or anyone else. In my experience, we don’t get very far into training in or discussion of classroom formative assessment before the question of changing the grading system comes up.
When can you come and present this to my school? My rates are reasonable and my agent can be reached at 303-655-2955.
How does closing the gap (or not) relate to the tiers of the instructional model? What does movement look to teachers especially as students move on? The idea is that students who are lower achieving require more time, focus, and intensity of instruction/intervention than their higher-achieving peers. They will receive, therefore, tier 2, 3, and 4 services as necessary.
How do we staff develop staff when they do not attend trainings? Ideally we would have all kinds of time for professional development which everyone would attend; and we don’t and they don’t. So we have to account for that by making sure that we don’t turn over our district initiatives every year, to give everybody a chance to receive training, and to make sure we get to full implementation of whatever we embark on. We are close to the point now where all schools in the district are engaged in professional development on classroom formative assessment in one form or another. We have principals talking to one another about differentiating professional development so that at one school classroom formative assessment for new teachers is being offered on a given professional development day, and another school is hosting a session for teachers who have had more practice. We have such widespread commitment to classroom formative assessment that you won’t be able to miss it just because you blinked.
How can teachers be supported in doing tier one interventions so they don’t jump directly to tier three or four when it’s not needed? Well, first of all, it’s not within a single teacher’s power to jump directly to tier 3 or 4–that’s the role of the problem-solving team, and the training for that has just taken place. Second, I would repeat what I’ve been saying about classroom formative assessment. It represents our district-wide approach to instruction in the regular classroom, and when done well will do more than any other instructional strategy to improve individual academic performance.
I don’t know what I did with this last question, but it was along the lines of asking about what strategies to use so that students feel competent. Students feel competent when they are competent. It can’t be faked. Students become competent when they know what the target is, know how they perform relative to the target, and know what to do to close the gap between their performance and the target. These factors are all within the control of the teacher, or teachers. As Dylan Wiliam says, we have to stop thinking of motivation as an input to education, and start thinking of it as an outcome. We are all born highly motivated to become competent, and it’s only when we no longer believe that that competence is within our grasp that we become motivated to avoid.
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on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Student Achievement and tagged classroom formative assessment, instructional model.
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