Nocking the Arrow

"Formative assessment  encompasses all those activities undertaken by teachers, and/or by their students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged."  -  Dylan William Last week, my old pickup truck started acting funny - loping, inconsistent idle, delayed erratic transmission shifts. Through years of experience, I know how most repair shops work, and I'm not in favor of spending money diagnosing an issue I can research myself.  It took roughly twenty minutes with Google and YouTube for me to pinpoint the problem. Luckily, I didn't need a new transmission, but I didn't have space or tools to do the repair myself. Several online forums and auto repair sites told me what I likely needed was an input speed sensor replaced on the transmission; a thirty dollar part, cool! I called a local repair shop, booked an appointment, and limped my truck to the shop. It's incredible how...

Dylan Wiliam is a prominent educator in the United Kingdom. His ideas and strategies are consistently mentioned in education reform circles. On an uncharacteristically quiet evening at home, I stumbled across these BBC videos, The Classroom Experiment . Although it took nearly two hours to get through the videos, I came away thinking that the teacher is certainly the most important factor in student learning, and that student learning can be improved with persistence and a willingness to become better at failure. For those folks that feel that teachers can be replaced by technology, these videos suggest otherwise. The Classroom Experiment - part 1 (58:00) The Classroom Experiment - part 2 (59:00) Dylan Wiliam at The Schools Network Conference (38:00) Here is a summary of the strategies and changes that Dylan Wiliam instituted to increase student engagement and advance student learning. No raising of hands - use Popsicle sticks, or some other mechanism to randomize th...