Using Assessment to Drive and Differentiate Instruction

Consider How You Use Your Car’s Dashboard…. Consider how you use your car’s dashboard…..You glance at it periodically to note your speed, the amount of gas that you have available , and to ensure that all systems are working properly. Without carefully and consistently assessing your dashboard, you risk being picked up for speeding, running out of gas, or damaging your car’s engine or other components.

Key Principles of a Differentiated Classroom Assessment and Instruction are INSEPARABLE!

Assessment in a Differentiated Classroom: Drives instruction Occurs consistently MAY be differentiated

Why Do You Assess? With your group, take 3 minutes and discuss the reasons you assess students.

“Too often, educational tests, grades, and report cards are treated by teachers as autopsies when they should be viewed as physicals.” Reeves, 2000

“Assessment is today’s means of understanding how to modify tomorrow’s instruction.” Carol Tomlinson

How Do You Assess? Take a moment to list some ways you typically assess students in your classroom. Laundry Day Activity

Assessment has more to do with helping students grow than cataloging their mistakes. Carol Ann Tomlinson

WHEN Do You Assess? Most teachers assess students at the end of an instructional unit or sequence. When assessment and instruction are interwoven, both the students and the teachers benefit.

On-Going, Formative Assessment Preassessment (Finding Out Before a Unit or Lesson Begins) Formative Assessment (Keeping Track and Checking In) Summative Assessment (Making Sure)

Using Assessment to Create the Ultimate Educational Driving Machine in Your Classroom

Differentiation Requires Meeting the Needs of ALL Drivers in Constantly Changing Road Conditions Remember learning to drive? Remember going down that checklist before you started the engine? Checking your mirrors, fastening your seatbelt, adjusting the seat and steering wheel, checking the gas and oil gauges, looking in your blind spot before pulling into traffic, putting your directional on... Inexperienced drivers are also often too timid to pull into the stream of traffic, even when it is safe to do so. And how is it now that you are an experienced driver? Do you actually go through that same checklist? Do you wait until there isn't a car in sight before you make that left? Yes, the rules are still important, but after a while they become second nature. If you don't check the gas, you could get stranded. And if you don't check your blind spot, you could get killed. But we are all more comfortable driving with an old-hand, someone we know will give us a safe and profitable ride without needing to resort to the rule book every five seconds. Young drivers lack the finesse, know-how and confidence they will gain as they gain experience. You don't jump on the expressway before you are comfortable driving at a high speed, do you? And you don't choose a curvy, hilly road until you are comfortable driving down streets without such challenges, do you? With the increasing number of new initiatives, it is becoming more and more important to evaluate where ALL stakeholders are in the change process. Even our most experienced drivers, are confronted with many challenges.

The Schoolnet Connection DETOUR Ahead Refocus on ideas from the morning. The Schoolnet Connection

Let’s Take A Test!!