Hello Educators,
Harlingen CISD is really focusing on professional learning communities (PLC) and promoting collaboration between teachers and campus principals on best practices and strategies. As part of PLCs one of the components is using data to drive instruction and monitor student learning.
In order for instructional staff to acquire data, students need to be assessed. Currently HCISD is administering three district level benchmarks and recommending for campuses to develop multiple common formative assessments.
How do you feel about district benchmarks and campus level common formative assessments?
Here are a couple of articles on DDI:
http://www.infotoday.com/mmschools/mar03/decker.shtml
http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/508-fenton.aspx
I think district benchmarks are good as long as data analysis follows. Teachers and administrators should evaluate what the benchmarks are showing and not showing. Sometimes we fail to see what tests are not showing and review only what they are.
ReplyDeleteI think once people get through the stage of resistance and folks embrace the value of the date that will result from the benchmarking - progress will become a more strategic process that may even alleviate some of the stresses educators face day to day.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there is too much testing going on in schools, and the way test days are treated at the campus level is a waste of valuable instructional time.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Saida, when it comes down to testing, teachers are being pulled out of class left and right to administer those tests with little consider of instruction lost for the student in their classrooms.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. We’ve heard these same concerns from teachers at Harlingen, but I think we need to sit back and really look at the process. If teachers do nothing but teach all year and not assess using the same exact test (common assessment), how will teachers know what needs to be spiraled back into future lessons and re-teach what some students failed to learn.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I think assessing students would be a great way for teachers that use technology in the classrooms to start getting buy-in from teachers that are skeptic about century21 methods. If we see a big significance in test results where one teacher is using century 21 tools to teach her student and another is using traditional methods, it should spark interest as to why one group performed better. This would be a great way to start promoting new teaching methods with century 21 tools.
This is the whole point about data driven instruction. It gives us a process to evaluate instruction, interventions, and adjust as needed to maximize student learning.
I agree if districts are just testing and looking at how many students failed and how many passed and then moving-on without planning on how the gaps will be closed and what expectations student learned and didn’t learn. This is not data driven instruction. I hope this makes sense.