Knowing Our Students as Readers

In order to engage students in goal setting, progress monitor those goals, and differentiate instruction, we need to know each individual student. With a class full of students and so much to do, how do we learn about students...

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Progress Monitoring Students’ Goals

Last time, we took first steps toward setting individual academic goals with students.  Now that those goals are set and action plans created, how do you keep track of all the learning?  How can you make decisions about where...

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Individual Academic Goals & Mid-Year Data

Since our October workshop on Student-Centered Assessment and Goal Setting, we’ve shared strategies for noticing and encouraging students’ naturally occurring, in-the-moment goals and for modeling goal setting and the student-centered assessment cycle explicitly through class goals. Now, it’s time...

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Passion Projects, Choice Challenges, & Genius Hour

People of all ages are naturally curious: “Why…?” “How does that work?”  “Will that always work?” “What if…?” In play and in work, children naturally ask these questions and attempt to answer them. These are in-the-moment, naturally occurring goals....

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Noticing an In-the-Moment Small Group Goal: The Carpet Train

The classroom is a very busy place!  Students filled with lots of questions are constantly engaging with materials and posing questions about things they notice and wonder in their environment.  When teachers take the time to notice what students...

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Taking the Time to Notice

Our students are busy - busy playing, learning, talking, thinking, discovering, experimenting, wondering. In each of these actions, our students reveal to us their thinking if we are ready to notice. When we notice, we can make our students’...

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