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I recently observed a wonderful Geometry class at my school taught by Helen Price.  There were quite a few techniques/strategies she used - from good use of direct questioning to giving students control of their learning to creating a positive culture - that would be worth sharing with others.  However, what really stood out to me was how well she incorporated AFL into the fabric of her planning.  It worked well.  As I watched her class I was reminded of the fact that AFL can't be an afterthought - unless the teacher just likes to add to his or her headaches...

Over the years I have had the privilege of working with many educators across the country helping them incorporate Assessment FOR Learning principles into their classrooms.  It's not uncommon for teachers to agree in theory with the idea that assessments should be used for feedback to guide learning.  It's not uncommon for teachers to agree in theory with the idea that students should continue to retake, redo, and rework assessments until they learn the material.  It is also not uncommon, though, for teachers to have difficulty making this theory work in reality.  It would be nice if learning could be the constant and time the variable, but the real-life constraints of time make implementation difficult.

Turning a philosophy into a classroom reality is not the easiest of tasks for all people.  Many - if not most - of us are very comfortable with what we know.  We tend to not think about life in terms of applying philosophies.  Rather, we look at problems and then plug in the solutions we've used before or seen used before.  While this method has some benefits - it's efficient, it's comfortable, it works if it works - it doesn't lead to the type of professional growth that occurs from getting outside our comfort zones.  We get better at doing what we already do, but what if we could be even better?

It's important, when we recognize theories that should work, for us to keep experimenting until we figure out how to make the theoretical a reality.  Specifically with the philosophy of AFL, I have noticed that when teachers have trouble incorporating it into their classroom it's because they have simply added AFL on top of what they already do instead of weaving it into the fabric of their instruction.

A perfect example of this is with the practice of retakes and redos.  Let's say a teacher teaches a unit of content the same as he or she always does and wraps things up with a traditional unit test.  If the teacher realizes at this point that students have not mastered the content at a satisfactory level, the teacher might feel pressure to turn the unit test into a formative or AFL experience by allowing students to take a retest.  While this is not an inherently bad idea, it often presents some problems for the teacher.  

Time isn't the variable at this point in most of our school systems.  In fact, time is a very limited constant.  So to allow a redo or a retake means more time on a unit of study already completed.  It means repeating things that some in the class have already learned. There just doesn't seem to be time to add this on top of what is already being done.  When handled this way, AFL becomes an additional burden on a teacher.  This should never be the case.

If a coach's players don't run a play right in practice, the coach has the players do it again.  In fact, the coach builds time into the practice session to allow players to run plays again and again and again.  It's assumed that the players won't do things right the first time.  If the coach "taught" the play for the 95% of practice and then tried to run it during the last 5% of the time, the coach might not have time run it again if the players didn't get it right.  This would lead to frustration.  The coach might say something like, "I did the best job I could teaching the plays, but the players didn't pay attention.  I don't have time to have them run the play again.  I need to move on to the next play."

This would be terrible coaching, and, quite frankly, when it occurs in the classroom it's terrible teaching.  Just as a coach builds in time for running plays over and over, a teacher must build in time to assess over and over.  

Back to Mrs. Price's Geometry class: I enjoyed watching Helen Price weave redos/retakes into the fabric of her class in a way that led to student engagement and student ownership of learning.  When I came into her class that day, the students were determining - based on feedback they had received from her - whether or not they were ready for a retake.  Those who felt they were - I love, by the way, how ownership of the learning process was given to the students - moved into another room with an instructional assistant to retake their quiz.  Those who weren't - a little less than half the class - stayed with Mrs. Price for an engaging and interactive review session.  The students who stayed behind had stayed for a purpose and this showed as they worked.  They were focused on what they knew they needed to know better to be ready to take the quiz again.

There are many things I could point out about Mrs. Price's lesson that day.  She incorporated technology well.  She did an excellent job pulling in all students.  She provided feedback that allowed students to make decisions.  She allowed students to learn by teaching each other under her guidance.  But what I was most excited about was seeing an example of how weaving AFL into the instructional plan from the beginning allows what could have been a headache in another classroom to be instead a great opportunity for moving down the path to mastery.

Don't try to add AFL to what you already do.  Instead, redesign and re-plan your practice sessions (lesson plans) so they incorporate redos and retakes of assessments from the very beginning.  

As educators we definitely care more about Learning than we care about Grading.  So it tends to frustrate us when our students seem to only care about getting a Grade. 

Do you ever wish you could redirect your students' focus to learning?  While it's not easy to do so, it's also not impossible.  Since most students will not unilaterally change their focus, we have to make sure that:

1. Everything we do reinforces the fact that we value Learning over Grading, and that
2. Nothing we do encourages students to focus on Grades.

Those 2 ideas might sound overly simplified, but the ramifications are immense.  If we honestly analyze traditional assessment practices, we'll start to find that much of what we do puts a focus on getting a grade.  Even the relatively "enlightened" practice of allowing retakes can end up causing kids to focus on trying to raise their grades rather than learn content. (For more on the subject of retakes, read this previous post.)

But when a teacher gives students regular feedback that is focused on learning - rather than on grades - it is possible to train students to think, communicate, and focus in a learning-centered manner.  Below is an email that one of our teachers sent me recently.  In it she recounts a conversation with a student who exemplified a focus on learning.  I hope as you read it you can imagine the satisfaction this teacher felt (as opposed to the typical frustration we feel when students just care about grades).

So I've been talking about mastery and areas of weakness more this year with my students. I'm trying to communicate it better, and I have done different exercises with them to help them diagnose their weaknesses.

Anyways, cool moment today - I had a girl who came to me on her own willingly and took out one of the papers I gave her last week on which she diagnosed her weakness during a station review. 

She said, "Can I go in the hallway and work on my weakness?"

I said, "Well, I haven't handed back the mastery sheet yet from your test today, but of course you can.   Do you know what your weak standards are?"

She responded with, "Yes I do,  I have the paper we used last week where we did stations, and I was able to pick out what I need to work on."

Keep in mind, this is a student who is more of an typical or middle-of-the-road student, not necessarily one who would be seen as an overachiever. In other words, my talk of "mastery and weakness" is working!  :)

Awesome!  How fun it was to read this email and to celebrate with a teacher who is helping students value learning!

(For more information on how this specific teacher helps students identify areas of weakness, read this previous post.)

I was speaking with a colleague the other day about the fact that some in our organization are still having a difficult time understanding and recognizing assessment for learning practices. Some continue to see assessment for learning as an elusive strategy or project that they have not yet figured out. In reality assessment for learning is nothing more than figuring out ways to regularly check the status of student learning and provide specific descriptive feedback and instruction that will lead to further learning and/or deeper understanding.

A recent post to this site borrowed a sports analogy from A Repair Kit for Grading, 15 Fixes for Broken Grades, by Ken O’Connor. I think expanding on this idea might bring some clarity to assessment for learning. The post explained that coaches design practice in order to prepare their team for the big game, the test. Throughout the week, coaches are continually monitoring practice, stopping the action regularly to provide specific feedback regarding the performance of the athletes compared to a clearly defined standard. At the highest level of sports, practices are even recorded and reviewed by both the coaches and the athletes so that both might see the errors and understand what needs to be done to correct them. Each practice is designed to meet the needs of the team and is based on observation and formative evaluation of the previous practice. The practices themselves are not graded; their sole purpose is to provide opportunities to prepare for the game.

The best teachers are coaches in the classroom, constantly monitoring the progression of learning and providing feedback that will lead each student further toward mastery of the standard. Formative assessment is the practice of formally and informally collecting information that informs both the teacher and the student about their progress. This information is used to provide feedback and to design lessons to ensure that every student is ready for the big game. One major difference from a more traditional approach is that practice opportunities are used more for providing feedback and less for determining grades.

Members of this site will appreciate the way middle school principal, Ryan McLane, has described the importance of Mastery Grading.  Read his Education Week article at: http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?DISPATCHED=true&cid=25983841&item=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edweek.org%2Few%2Farticles%2F2013%2F06%2F05%2F33mclane.h32.html%3Ftkn%3DZLCCITACcBCfR8CBWbOW%252BWRaeYRQ%252BrwJbqnf%26cmp%3Dclp-sb-ascd

Members of this AFL Network will appreciate this article (link at end of blog post) written by Laurie Amundson and published in the November 2011 edition of Ed Leadership.  

Laurie Amundson is an elementary teacher.  A majority of our members are high school educators which could mean that some tweaking of her practices would be in order.  For example, some of the assessment she does of student work could be by the students themselves in a high school setting.  That being said, I really believe the idea of using standards based grading to assess student needs and to guide instruction is a natural outgrowth of AFL.  

I'll be interested to see if anyone out there has any thoughts after reading the article.

Here's the link.

Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about being an FBI agent, training to be an FBI agent, or anything at all related to the FBI...

Recently I had a conversation at church with a friend who is a former-English-teacher-turned-FBI-agent.  We were discussing a David Baldacci novel i was reading at the time about the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.  My friend recommended a book by FBI Special Agent Christopher Whitcomb entitled Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.  The next week at church, my friend showed up with a copy of the book for me, and yesterday I finally got around to starting it.

Now please realize, this book has absolutely nothing to do with teaching or education whatsoever.  I am not recommending it as a book for teachers to read - unless the teacher likes books about the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.  But believe it or not, I found a little Standards Based Learning nugget on page 37.  

The author is recounting how he became an FBI agent.  At this point in the book he has made it to the FBI Academy in Quantico where the best of the best are trained and held to the highest of standards.  In talking about the tests they had to take, the author says the following:

Somewhere in between, we found time to study for the exams that came with relentless frequency.  At least once a week our entire class huddled together, reviewing notes and making sure the less prepared among us would feel ready the next day.  As our letters stated, a score of 84 or lower in any course would result in a New Agent Review Board and disciplinary action.  If you failed to achieve 85 on a makeup exam or performed similarly on another exam, you were gone.

Did you notice what he said?  If you didn't earn a satisfactory score of 85 on a test, you were kicked out of the FBI Academy - BUT NOT RIGHT AWAY.  That's right - the world's top law enforcement agency - that only selects the best of the best of the best and that has the highest standards anywhere - GIVES STUDENTS TEST REDOS!

Often, when considering whether or not to allow students to redo work originally done poorly, teachers are concerned that by doing so they might not prepare young people for the real world.  Teachers struggle with the concept of students getting used to redos and not receiving them later on in life.  I appreciate the logic behind that.  But while I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to this statement, the real world is full of second chances.

I'm sure for every example I came up with of people getting chances to redo things in the real world, someone could find another example where someone didn't get that chance.  And I'm sure the example I just shared from the FBI has its flaws and limitations.  But the bottom line is this: It is not true that people don't get redos in the real world.

Of course, it is also true that school isn't the real world - it's school.  We aren't supposed to be the same as the real world.  In some cases, we should be better than the real world.  After all, the real world has plenty of flaws.  In other cases, we are preparing for the real world that students will encounter eventually.  But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that if we give a student a redo or retake - ESPECIALLY IF BY DOING SO THE STUDENT LEARNS THE CONTENT - we are dong a poor job of preparing students.

After all, I'd say the FBI Academy is about as "real world" as you get, and even they allow - regardless of how limited - an opportunity for a test redo.

Often, the most profoundly powerful concepts are simple at their core. AFL is such a concept.

Doesn't it just make sense? If we want young people to learn content or skills, we need to gather feedback - and help them gather feedback - on how their doing in relation to specific standards and then use that feedback - and train them to use the feedback - to guide learning.  

It's a lot like going to the doctor when you're sick.  You tell the doctor what's wrong with you so he or she can use your feedback to guide the application of medical treatment.  You would never think of NOT telling the doctor your symptoms - unless you weren't interested in getting better..  It's just common sense.  It's a simple practice that leads to powerful results.  There's no reason the classroom shouldn't function the same way - unless we're not interested in students actually learning....

The PE Curriculum of Salem (VA) City Schools has changed in recent years to have a primary focus on fitness as opposed to the traditional game-based physical education.  The goal is to teach a student what she needs to be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle for a lifetime.  Kids are taught to:

• analyze their own fitness activity,
• recognize various fitness levels,
• analyze their heart rate and how it relates to fitness levels
• determine what type of activity is required to reach various fitness levels

All of these skills will help students take control of their own physical well-being and live healthy lives.

Recently I was in a PE class at Salem High School taught by Ashley Mathis. Mrs. Mathis did an excellent job incorporating the goals of Salem's PE curriculum into her activity.  Her students were working out in the school's fitness room.  They were paired up at stations around the room.  The students would be active for two minutes at their station.  After two minutes they would stop, measure their heart rate, and then rotate stations.  They had a goal of being in a certain fitness level for a certain number of minutes.  They used the feedback from taking their pulse to increase or decrease their intensity at the next station appropriately.  

My first thought as I watched the class was that this is what a PE class should look like.  All kids were engaged.  All kids were active.  All kids were working hard.  And - at least as best I could tell - all kids were having fun.  This was a meaningful class teaching students meaningful skills that have the potential to lead to healthy and active lifestyles.

But the other thing I thought was how natural the principles of AFL fit into this the class.  To make a big deal out of this class's "AFLishness" seems unnecessary because it seems so natural or normal.  Yet there is something profoundly important to be learned from once again realizing how to best use assessment in the classroom.  Specifically, in Mrs. Mathis's class:

• The assessment strategy was well-planned and intentional, rather than an after-thought.  Assessment was woven into the activity and integral instead of something additional that was done when the activity was over.
• The feedback was constant and given throughout the activity - every 2 minutes to be exact.  Students always knew where they were and how they were doing.  They didn't have to wait until everything was finished to see how they did.
• The teacher used the feedback to know how to encourage students and how to direct their upcoming activities.
• The students used the feedback to self-regulate and take control of their own growth.
• The assessment was unrelated to a grade.  Instead, the assessment-elicited feedback was directly related to growth and learning.

AFL is how people learn.  It's not just how we learn in school.  It's how we learn period.  It seems so simple, yet sometimes the bulleted list of principles evident in Mrs. Mathis's class are not evident to the degree they should be in our classrooms.  They need to be.  Whatever you teach, use this PE example as a model on which to base your assessment strategy.

Thanks, Ashley!

Here's an excellent resource created and shared by Pam Jimison.  It's a great way to look at Assessment FOR Learning strategies.  What would you add to her graphic?

http://wjuedtech.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/formative-assessment-infographic/

Math.  Some people love Math and some people hate it.  Some excel at it naturally while others struggle mightily.  Some see it as a clear universal language, but for others it is is the embodiment of the Tower of Babel.  Some see its usefulness, some do not.  Some are indifferent, some are passionate.  Some are scared of it, some are excited by it, and others plod along doing their best to understand it.

While Math usually elicits a variety of responses, there is one place in most schools where the thoughts about Math are almost universally homogeneous.  When it comes to the traditional manner of grading used in our schools, everybody - parents, teachers, and students - relies on Math like a lifeboat in a shipwreck.

How are grades typically determined in most classrooms in most schools?  Basically, in most classrooms they're determined the same way they've always been.  It doesn't matter if the class is Language Arts, Fine Arts, or Culinary Arts, when it comes to deciding what a student's grade should be a CALCULATION is done to determine an AVERAGE.  People who in the rest of their lives might be scared to death of Math, suddenly become Disciples of Math and swear by a grade book average.  In fact, the word "average" becomes synonymous with the word "grade," as in "What is your average in that class?"

We all know how this works, but let's recap quickly.  Typically, assignments are graded by the teacher and entered into a grade book.  The grade is a fraction - a number of points earned (numerator) divided by a number of points possible (denominator).  The grade book adds up the numerator points earned for all assignments and divides that by the collective number of denominator points.  The resulting average is the student's grade.

There are 3 major problems with this system:

1. It's inaccurate.  
   Who came up with the idea that an average of all work or all attempts at learning depicts actual learning?  Why would a student's earlier and lower attempts at learning be averaged in with his eventual outcome?  In other words, if a student finally "gets it" doesn't that "get it" grade reflect better what he knows than an average of all previous attempts?  The only way that a mathematical average of all assignments doesn't falsify a grade is if the student scores the same on all attempts.
2. It's not realistic.  
   Perhaps someone out there can think of something I'm missing, but I can't think of any meaningful real-world applications of the "average all your attempts" method of determining outcome.  Even in the world of sports, where things like Batting Average and Yards Per Catch are routinely used, if a player with a low average hits a home run or catches a 99-yard touchdown it counts for just that - a home run or a TD.  No one says, "I'm sorry that catch only raised your average to 8.2 yards per catch so we'll only count it for 8.2 yards."  We are not held to our average in real-life.  Why are we held to it in schools?  Shouldn't we be preparing students for the real world where your most recent attempt at something is what counts the most - or at all?
3. It minimizes education.  
   This is the one I care about the most.  We - educators - have turned our classrooms and schools into one giant Quest for Numerator Points.  What do we care about most?  Learning.  What do we wish our students and parents cared about most?  Learning.  Yet by over-relying on mathematical calculations we have created a culture that wants numerator points above all else.  May I have extra credit?  What can I do to earn more points?  How many points do I need for an A?  These are all questions we hear on a regular basis that demonstrate the fact that the focus is in the wrong place.  If we ever want to get the focus back to learning instead of on earning a grade, then we must have the boldness to think beyond the Math Box.

Are there benefits to using the mathematical average process for determining a grade?  Sure.  It's definitely efficient.  It's easy to figure out and to calculate.  It somehow seems "mathy" which makes people feel like it has a basis in something real and dependable.  It works well with the typical grade books issued by schools.  It can also take the blame of the teacher by providing a math-based excuse or reason for a grade.

But do any of these benefits outweigh the fact that it's inaccurate, that it's not realistic, and that it minimizes education?  Surely not.  Reason 3 alone - turning our classrooms into quests for numerator points - should be enough to drive us to look for a better method.  How can something as powerful as the education of a young person be allowed to devolve into a quest for points?  Learning is so much more than that and so much more important.  

So what's the answer?  This post wasn't written to provide a specific answer - sorry.  The purpose of this post is to help us recognize that the Quest for Numerator Points - or the over-reliance on Math - is a problem that has to stop.  We can't change until we first recognize the problem.

The answer in general, though, lies in using Assessment FOR Learning strategies (click here for tons of examples).  It lies Standards-Based Learning strategies (click here for more information) or documenting student progress toward mastering specific standards.  It lies in teachers having the boldness to think outside the box and to collaborate on how to efficiently communicate accurate and meaningful feedback.  It lies in fewer numerical scores and more descriptive feedback.  It lies in more flexible grade books that measure progress instead of just average attempts.  It lies in not being satisfied with the status quo but instead being on a continuous journey of professional growth for the purpose of increased learning.  It lies in using scores and grades as feedback tools that help students make learning decisions and teachers make instructional decisions instead of looking at them as numbers to plug into a comfortable formula.

The answer isn't simple since it goes against decades of institutional inertia.  But once we boldly find it, we can quit this Quest for Numerator Points and embark on the exciting and important Quest for Learning! 

As readers of blogs on this site know, I love the philosophy of Assessment FOR Learning.  However, a philosophy is only as valuable as the results it produces.  I'd like to share with you some results of AFL's impact on teaching and learning at the school where it is my privilege to serve as an Assistant Principal - Salem High School in Salem, VA.

From school year 1999-2000 to school year 2007-2008 (the school year BEFORE SHS began making AFL its professional development focus), Salem High School averaged 89.6 retentions per school year.  This means that 89.6 students - which on a typical year would be about 7% of our student body - failed to move on to the next grade level.

AFL's focus is not about getting students to pass.  It's about getting students to learn and then making sure that grades accurately reflect that learning.  Obviously, though, passing classes would be a byproduct of such a focus.

Since the 2008-2009 school year, when Salem High School's teachers began adopting AFL strategies and exploring how to use assessment to increase learning, SHS has averaged 44 retentions per year.  That is slightly fewer than half the number of retentions that we averaged during the 9 previous school years.  On a typical year, 44 retentions would be about 3.5% of our student body.

During that same period of time our graduation rate has increased, our state test scores have continued to improve or stay at a very high pass rate, our percentage of students taking dual-enrolled and advanced courses has remained incredibly high, and our SAT scores have remained at or above the national average.  Students at Salem High School are not passing because they are being passed along.  They are passing because they are learning.  And they are learning because the wonderful faculty of SHS is taking very seriously its efforts to use assessment as a learning tool.

AFL works, and I look forward to seeing our data get even better as our teachers become even more proficient at incorporating AFL strategies into their everyday lessons.  

One of the great hurdles to moving toward a Standards Based approach to learning, teaching, grading, and communicating is the fact that our students have been conditioned to operate in a points based system.  They have been raised in a system that focuses more on earning points for grades than on standards based feedback focused on learning.

Educators and schools making the shift to SBL philosophies often develop strategies and plans for communicating SBL principles and practices to parents.  The thinking is that parents have been conditioned by the same system that has trained their children and that parents will be upset if their children are faced with a new constructs, lingo, and grading practices.  While communicating clearly with parents is important, focusing first on how to win over parents overlooks the most powerful communication ally teachers possess - students.

If students understand the goals of SBL and how it will benefit their learning, then they become powerful advocates for meaningful assessment strategies.  Students are the buffer between school and home.  We should never underestimate the importance of making sure that they understand the value of what we're doing with them in the classroom.  If they can articulate a concept appropriately, then their parents are more likely to hear about practices such as SBL in a positive manner - even if we have never directly communicated with them about those practices.

Beth Denton, a wonderful Math teacher at Salem High School, recently shared the following email with me.  The first paragraph is Beth's explanation to me.  The second paragraph is from the student to Beth.  Notice that Beth recognizes that the student is still too focused on the grade.  However, the outcome, even if influenced by a desire for a higher grade, is one that leads to a student taking ownership of learning as a result of Beth's standard based feedback.  

Here is the email I received from Beth:

An email from a concerned student. While it's still grade focused, I see hints that we're moving in the right direction.  This student knows what she needs to improve on and is looking for MASTERY of the topics!  Yay!

 

 Hi Mrs. Denton! I haven't gotten a chance to have a conversation with you about this so I thought I would send you and e-mail and come in some time next week after school to start working. My current grade in this class is an 87 and my goal for this semester is to have an A. I realize that since the points are different, my best bet is to make up some of the previous "1.0's" that I got and of course, continue to ace tests and any graded assignments. According to JumpRope, the skills that I personally need improvement on include: Determining whether figures have been rotated, dilated, or reflected, Parallel Lines cut by a transversal, and finally, The unit 5 congruent triangles portion of the test. I would like to improve my mastery on these skills not only to get my grade up, but to do well on these topics during the SOL. If you are available I plan to be staying after school as much as possible next week. So sorry for such a long e-mail haha! Thank you for understanding. 

Are you training your students to think in terms of SBL?  Are your students still coming to you chasing points, or are they, as Beth's student exemplifies, able to communicate their specific areas of strength and need based on your standards based feedback?  (By the way, JumpRope, the standards based grading system referenced by the teacher, is a phenomenal tool for standards based commmuncation.)

If this student's parent were to ask her to explain how Mrs. Denton grades, I have no doubt that the students would be able to do so in a way that would cause the parent to appreciate Mrs. Denton's instructional practices.  More importantly, this student would be able to communicate that Mrs. Denton is grading and assessing in a manner that enables her to learn. 

I just finished watching a TED TALK by Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy. Sal was talking about mastery learning and the importance of building strong learning foundations before layering on additional information.

As I watched the video, I was thinking about why a stubborn 25% of most students in the upper elementary, middle, and high schools are reading two or more years below grade level.

Sal cites the example of a child who scores an average grade of 75% on a unit test. Most educators would accept 75% as an average score, and in fact most diagnostic assessments would accept 75—80% as mastery level; however, Sal points out the not knowing 25% of the test components is problematic. From the student's perspective: "I didn't know 25% of the foundational thing, and now I'm being pushed to the more advanced thing."

When students try to learn something new that builds upon these shaky foundations, "they hit a wall... and "become disengaged."

Sal likens the lack of mastery learning to shoddy home construction. What potential homeowner would be happy to buy a new home that has only 75% of its foundation completed (a C), or even 95% (an A)?

Of course, Sal is a math guy and math lends itself to sequential mastery learning more so than does my field of English-language arts and reading intervention. My content area tends to have a mix of sequential and cyclical teaching learning, as reflected in the structure of the Common Core State Standards. The author of the School Improvement Network site puts it nicely:

Many teachers view their work from a lens that acknowledges the cyclical nature of teaching and learning.  This teaching and learning cycle guides the definition of learning targets, the design of instructional delivery, the creation and administration of assessments and the selection of targeted interventions in response to individual student needs.

At this point, our article begins to beg the question: What if a shaky foundation is what we're dealing with now? We can't do anything about the past. Teachers can start playing the blame game and complain that we're stuck teaching reading to students who missed key foundational components, such as phonics. All-too-often, response to intervention teachers are ignoring shaky foundations and are trying to layer on survival skills without fixing the real problems.

Instead, teachers should re-build the foundation. Teachers can figure out what is missing in the individual student skill-sets and fill the gaps... this time with mastery learning.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. A key component of the program is our 13 diagnostic reading assessments. These comprehensive and prescriptive assessments will help response to intervention reading teachers find out specifically which reading and spelling deficits have created a shaky foundation for each of your students. I gladly share these FREE Reading Assessments with teachers and welcome your comments and questions.

I came across this blog by Cassandra Erkens recently from a link on Twitter.  I was reminded of 2 things:

1. Twitter is an excellent resource for professional development and professional growth, and
2. Formative Assessment - Assessment FOR Learning - just makes sense.

I love how Erkens provides practical ideas for implementing AFL strategies into a classroom.  More importantly, though, is how she helps teachers decide what to STOP doing in order to make room for the new strategies.

Follow this link to read Focused Formatives by Cassandra Erkens.  You can follow Cassandra on Twitter at @cerkens.

Kudos to Salem High School math teacher, Erin Stenger, for thinking to put a sign like this right next to her doorway where students will see it each day as they leave her class.

It has been noted before on this website that for AFL to truly have its greatest possible impact, the students need to be using assessment-elicited feedback to measure their own progress and guide their own learning. Like most things that we want students to do, though, we must train them to do it. This is especially true for AFL since most students (just like most parents and most teacher) tend to look at grades from a summative position.

If we want students to view grades as feedback that guide their learning rather than just get averaged together to determine a grade, then we must 2 things:

1. We must grade and assess in a formative manner rather than just collect a bunch of scores to average.

2. We must train our students.

This picture in Mrs. Stenger's room is a subtle but important example of this. Most importantly, it reveals the fact that AFL is a core philosophy that permeates the way Mrs. Stenger runs her classroom.

Here are some other blog posts that deal with the same idea of students knowing what they know:

1. Do They Know If They Know?

2. Did AFL Guide My Instruction Today?

3. Assessment FOR Learning - A quick and easy indicator

4. AFL - It's about students taking ownership of learning

At our 1/10/18 faculty meeting, teachers were asked to bring a recent and typical lesson plan with them.  Meeting in groups of 3 or 4, teachers shared the details of the lesson plans with each other.

Then a few thoughts were shared with the entire group about the relationship between Assessment and Pedagogy.  Sometimes we think of assessment as what happens after the pedagogy occurs.  The faculty was encouraged to think of assessment as part of the pedagogy itself. 

Keeping in mind that assessment is anything that results in getting and/or giving meaningful feedback, no lesson can be at its best if it doesn't include some type of assessment activity.  Learning requires the getting and/or giving of feedback.

Teachers then had a conversation in their small groups about how best to weave assessment into the lesson plan they brought with them.

Hopefully, practical conversations like this lead to productive collaboration and an increased use of meaningful assessment.  Maybe an activity like this would benefit your faculty?

When our school first starting investigating Assessment FOR Learning 4 years ago, the first teacher we had address our faculty with an AFL classroom example was Bert Weschke, our Welding teacher.  Recently, as I have engaged in some conversations about applying AFL practices to the classroom - or more specifically, NOT applying those strategies - I have come back in my mind to Bert's example.  There's a lot to learn about AFL from the way Bert Weschke teaches students to "lay a bead".

A weld bead is a deposit of metal that results from a passing of the welding torch over metal.  Bert shared that when teaching students to lay a bead, he has them practice numerous times on a piece of metal.  As they are practicing, he is moving around the room providing them with feedback.  He has already taught/lectured on how to lay a bead.  Now, as he moves about the room, his students get plenty of practice and receive plenty of feedback.  

Eventually, the student will have to submit a bead that receives a summative grade.  Until that point, though, each student will repeat the process over and over with the goal of mastery in mind.  The feedback the student receives might come in the form of a grade - such as "If this was the final product you'd get a C." - but it isn't going to impact the grade.  

This seems to me to be the common sense way to teach Welding.  Imagine a Welding teacher lecturing and demonstrating how to make a bead, telling the students to study his notes on bead laying that night, and then taking his students into the shop the next day for a hands-on test before moving on to the next topic.  It just wouldn't make sense - unless, of course, mastery of the skill was not the goal.

So why does it make sense to teach this way in a Science class or a History class or any other classroom? It doesn't.

If students are going to master content THEY MUST BE GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES TO PRACTICE THE CONTENT AND THEY MUST RECEIVE FEEDBACK FROM THE TEACHER.  Grading the student really should be secondary.  The feedback could look like a grade - "If the final test were today you'd have a C." - but it really shouldn't be what determines the grade.  

It's true that some students can listen to a lecture or read notes and then do well on a test, but:

1. Not all can,

2. This doesn't ensure long-term learning, and

3. This makes the teacher irrelevant.

No matter the level of the student or the level of the course, teachers MUST provide opportunities for practice and they must give regular feedback along the way.  That feedback could be entered into a grade book; it could be a score on a unique feedback scale (such as a check or check+); it could be descriptive and in paragraph format, or it could be a simple statement such as "Keep working on _____."  

How much feedback is too much?  If you're following kids home in the afternoon to give them feedback instead of being with your family, then you probably need to stop.  Until then, keep giving feedback.

As I think about Bert's example of teaching Welding, I'm reminding of several History professors I had in college.  By lecturing and giving notes without any feedback or assessment prior to the quiz, large test, or exam, essentially these professors ended up assessing whether or not:

1. I had strong listening skills,

2. I could memorize notes, and/or

3. I could teach myself.

What they weren't assessing was how well THEY TAUGHT me the content.

Let's not be like those professors.  Instead, let's be like a good Welding instructor.  Let's make sure that students have many opportunities to practice and receive FEEDBACK.  Let's make sure TEACHERS lead students to mastery.