Focused Formative Assessment

A helpful and practical post on Focused Formative Assessment that I found in the May 31 issue of CVU Learns.

Reframing Curriculum

...for the future, (and perhaps also for next year).
How might THESE SHIFTS change the way teachers design units of study, and change the way students experience those units?!

To Have Lost Maxine Greene and Maya Angelou in the same week...

How blessed we were by their insight!

Maxine Greene taught us so much about curriculum: about the role of the arts in enabling humans to imagine a world characterized by social justice.  See this post: Maxine Greene: The Importance of Personal Reflection for a glimpse of her gifts.

Maya Angelou's passing has led me to read and re-read a variety of her writings, and they have helped renew my courage and resolve.  I so love this very brief video clip from her keynote at the 2013 ASCD conference.

Maya Angelou - How Blessed We Have Been

Maya Angelou, how blessed we have been that you were in this world:
On the Pulse of the Morning

An Elementary Teacher's Great Website on Genius Hour in Her Classroom

Check out Mrs. Bright's First Grade Classroom, especially how she has organized and managed "Genius Hour".

VT Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe on the Common Core

Rebecca Holcombe's May 21 blog entry http://vtedprep.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/what-is-the-common-core-and-why-did-vermont-adopt-it/ expresses a perspective on the CC that puts it in its proper place.  I wished she'd said more about SBAC, but perhaps we'll hear more from her on that soon?

Essential Questions Lists

This website, created by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, has a list of 25 essential questions in all curriculum areas that is changed every day: http://www.essentialquestions.org (click on 25 Essential Questions).  You'll also find helpful videos on using Essential Questions in the classroom.

(found in the Marshall Memo, issue 536 - a terrific resource! - see http://www.marshallmemo.com/)