Formative Assessment: Voices from the Field

  • Home
  • About Us
  • What Is Formative Assessment?
  • Join the Conversation
  • MKEA Trainings & Support

Sharing Ideas and Practice

Playful Learning through Intentional Teaching

What has been the impact in kindergarten classrooms of good implementation of the following new initiatives and tools in Massachusetts?

  • Elements of High Quality Kindergarten document
  • Observational formative assessment
  • Social Emotional Learning and Play and Learning Standards
  • Massachusetts Science, Technology/Engineering Frameworks

According to Kathleen Bailer, John Ashley School and Cowing School Principal, West Springfield, these initiatives have had a major, positive impact on kindergarten teaching in her district.

Here is the link to her recent post on the MESPA blog, Principals Supporting Principals:

Play Ball! A Home Run for Kindergarten

What are your thoughts about this approach to 21st century learning?

Filed Under: Helpful Resources, Sharing Ideas and Practice, Social-Emotional Learning, With Administrators in Mind

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

How to Adapt Commercial Literacy Programs for Your Children

By Christina Cassano, Assistant Professor, Salem State University

In my work with teachers and reading specialists, I am frequently asked questions regarding published literacy programs. Specifically, teachers and reading specialists want to know how to best modify the one-size-fits-all lesson to meet the needs of a range of learners or to make changes to make the lessons more developmentally-appropriate.  

It is important to remember that you know the needs of the children in your classroom far better than any publisher.  Trust your expertise! To help you with making changes to lessons, I’ve outlined a three-part approach that can help teachers and reading specialists consider if modifications are needed and how to make them quickly and effectively.  … [Read More]

Filed Under: Helpful Resources, Sharing Ideas and Practice, Using assessment data

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

“My Students Love It!” – A Kindergarten Teacher’s Storytelling Journey

By Kim Davenport, MKEA Regional Coordinator, Central Region

A Worcester Kindergarten teacher recently shared an update on her use of Storytelling-Story Acting.  In her classroom of 28 students 22 were identified as DLLs at the beginning of the school year.  She began implementing Storytelling-Story Acting in late January. She found the implementation easy and transformative for her students. Here’s a glimpse at what it looks like…

At breakfast time, each morning, I sit with the leader of the day and s/he tells me a story. I write what the student says. The story can be as short as the child wants or as long as the page. Later on in the day, after lunch I say, “It’s that time of day!” and the students say, “It’s time for our play!” as they move to the “stage” and sit down anxiously awaiting who gets chosen to be the actors. Not only do the students enjoy the one-on-one time with me in the morning telling me their story, but they are learning so much in the 2-8 minutes during the play. (The average play only takes 3 minutes!)

When I first started I did not guide the storyteller in any way, but now that the year has progressed I use the time to push students to the next level in his/her story development. I may guide them for more descriptive words, or more character development, or I may make spelling mistakes or forget punctuation to see if the student notices and corrects me. The guidance I provide depends on the individual student. An enormous amount of one-on-one learning occurs in just two to five minutes each morning. In addition, the students look forward to their storytelling day because they know they have the teacher’s full attention while telling any story they want to share. No rules, no set topic, no starter sentence or literature response, no sentence frames and the pressure of needing to sound out and spell words is gone. The stage is theirs – literally!

Acting out the story is another amazing learning opportunity. In a classroom of 28 students, 22 of whom are English language learners in different stages of their knowledge of the English language, I was worried that acting out the story would be difficult. It wasn’t, and it isn’t! I read the story while the chosen actors act out the parts they were given by the author to play. Some children just need to be a house or a tree while others are animals or aliens or superheroes or the mom. Students are just as excited to be randomly chosen as the audience as they are to be chosen to be an actor or part of the setting. In this few minutes, they are learning so much about characters, setting, vocabulary, teamwork, and listening. I could go on and on about the emotional, social, language and academic benefits of storytelling and story acting in just 10 minutes or less each school day. It is an easy to implement activity in which the only materials needed are a notebook and a pencil. ~ Diane Smith, Kindergarten Teacher, Worcester, MA

Consider how this powerful technique can support your goals for individual children and help you support their development and learning.  The documentation happens naturally.  The stories are written, the acting can be captured on video or with a photograph, and the connections to learning innumerable.

 

Filed Under: Sharing Ideas and Practice, Social-Emotional Learning

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Literacy + Social Emotional + One-on-One Time…in just 10 minutes!

By Kim Davenport, MKEA Regional Coordinator for the Central Region

At a January DESE conference on Early Literacy, the Boston Public School Early Childhood Department shared aspects of their K2 Focus on Literacy curriculum.  It is an empowering, project-based curriculum that engages young minds while developing critical cognitive and social-emotional skills.

One powerful tool used by preschool, Kindergarten, and now 1st grade teachers is storytelling-story acting which is based on the work of Vivian Gussin Paley.   This curriculum element develops language and literacy skills, while supporting creativity and social and emotional development. The best news is that it doesn’t take much time but the rewards are tremendous.

Essentially, storytelling-story acting involves taking dictation of a story from one child each day, then later in the day, the story is re-enacted with classmates serving as the characters, setting elements, and audience. … [Read More]

Filed Under: Sharing Ideas and Practice, Social-Emotional Learning

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

The Benefits of Formative Assessment in a Time of Accountability

By Doug McNally, MKEA Regional Coordinator, Berkshire Region

As a long time school principal, I am very sensitive to the difficulty school administrators have connecting the dots among the array of initiatives they are called upon to implement. We have to develop school improvement plans aligned with district plans. We have to align our evaluation practices with new guidelines, including assisting teachers in developing SMART goals that support the school plan and will help them improve student achievement. Principals are called upon to ensure that the curriculum is aligned with current standards and that it is consistently implemented in all classrooms. Furthermore, we know that to effectively implement the strategies required by RETELL, such as tiered instruction and tiered vocabulary development, we need some way to formatively assess students’ proficiency; all this in the time of accountability and high-stakes testing. No wonder that some principals feel a bit overwhelmed by the requirement that they oversee the implementation of an observational assessment tool in the classrooms of their very young kindergarten students.

But in fact, the use of GOLDTM by Teaching Strategies is a vehicle that can enable schools to bring order to all the challenges they face…. [Read More]

Filed Under: Sharing Ideas and Practice, With Administrators in Mind

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

How do you use iPads and tablets?

by  Barbara Jacobs, MKEA Regional Coordinator, Greater Boston Region

Lisa Kuh, Director of Early Education for the Somerville Public Schools, posted a question recently to colleagues in the Greater Boston Regional MKEA Leadership Network set up last year. Her question: How are adults and children in other districts are using iPads/tablets in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms? Here is a synopsis of the responses:

… [Read More]

Filed Under: Sharing Ideas and Practice, With Administrators in Mind

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Social-Emotional Development: What’s happening in districts?

By Kay Lisseck, MKEA Regional Coordinator, Pioneer Valley Region

With a focus on social-emotional learning, the latest annual report from the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy points to “an increasing — and convincing — body of evidence” suggesting, what many teachers already know: “When schools and their partners address “social-emotional” competencies, such as self-regulation and interpersonal communication, in addition to skills more traditionally associated with academics, they do a better job at both preparing students for the realities of college and adulthood and helping them master core academic content.”

  • New Bedford’s adoption of the CSEFEL pyramid model for supporting social-emotional competence in young children in ways that are tailored to each child’s level of need. The bottom of the pyramid represents general teaching practices that can support all children’s social-emotional well-being.
  • In Newton, a focus on professional development that supports teachers in integrating research-based social-emotional practices with the teaching of academic content, helps ensure that the inclusion of attention to social-emotional competencies is not an “add-on” but incorporated into general teaching practice and the establishment of a supportive learning environment.
  • In Chelsea, focusing on cultivating a growth mindset (the belief that persistent effort can produce better results) at all levels of the system, in classroom practice and in professional development. ( For more on the impact of a growth mindset on student learning, see this 3:26 -minute video demonstration.

What’s happening in your district to foster social-emotional learning and development?

 

Filed Under: Sharing Ideas and Practice, Social-Emotional Learning

Like what you're reading? Share it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Formative Assessment: Voices from the Field promotes and supports observation-based, ongoing assessment of the whole child leading to responsive teaching to maximize children’s learning.

On this blog you will find information, resources, news and upcoming events, and discussions initiated by Massachusetts educators. Click on the article's title to enable commenting.

Let us know what else you want to see related to the use of formative assessment!

Subscribe by Email


This 11-minute video of North Carolina kindergarten classrooms gives a vivid picture of formative assessment in action.

Categories

  • Helpful Resources (3)
  • Sharing Ideas and Practice (7)
  • Social-Emotional Learning (5)
  • Using assessment data (1)
  • With Administrators in Mind (4)
Blog Team: Jane Myers and Jini Alreja
Assessment for Responsive Teaching

Copyright 2023 Collaborative for Educational Services · All Rights Reserved