May 22 Home Communicator – As you know this year the staff has gone through a professional development class based on 7 strategies for assessment. This class was valuable for many different reasons. First, it allowed staff a common time to come together, learn, and then work together on developing best practices. In a profession where you spend more time isolated from colleagues than working with them this was valuable to build concepts, ideas, and skills to use in the classroom. Second, it has given our school consistency in strategies and vocabulary to develop and work with students on doing their best. Finally, it has provided thoughtful questions and reflection on practices that otherwise might not have been thought about. In Professional Learning Communities we were able to have some difficult discussions and really look into why we do things the way we do. I don’t want you to just take my word for it though, these are things you can expect to see being used in classrooms in the coming years.
What we learned:
- The power of learning, not just achieving
- Formative assessment practices
- Clear Learning Targets- communicated with students
- Provided descriptive feedback for learning
- Goal setting and self assessment
- Focused individual practice and instruction
- Reflection and sharing of their learning
I encourage you to talk about these things at conferences, ask your kids what they learned that day, talk about how the teacher is tracking the students work that year, and many more. Thank you for partnering with us in providing opportunities to challenge students’ minds and lives for Christ!
In Christ,
Justin Knot, Director of Curriculum and Instruction
