Formative Writings

This volume, first published in English in 1987 makes available an important part of Weil’s early writings. Although primarily known as a religious thinker, she devoted enormous energy in her formative years to her work as a political activist and as a philosopher/teacher. This book reveals these other sides of Weil and demonstrates the lines of continuity underlying her whole thought. Written between 1929 and 1941 the book covers a crucial and transitional period in Weil’s life. Taken together they represent invaluable primary source material on the evolution of Weil’s life and on her chosen method of abstracting elements from her personal experience and transmuting that experience into considered thought. Even when highly theoretical, her writing was always concerned with the application of her intelligence to concrete problems of human existence.

Why you need a writing revolution in your classroom and how to lead it The Writing Revolution (TWR) provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach. The model, also known as The Hochman Method, has demonstrated, over and over, that it can turn weak writers into strong communicators by focusing on specific techniques that match their needs and by providing them with targeted feedback. Insurmountable as the challenges faced by many students may seem, The Writing Revolution can make a dramatic difference. And the method does more than improve writing skills. It also helps: Boost reading comprehension Improve organizational and study skills Enhance speaking abilities Develop analytical capabilities The Writing Revolution is as much a method of teaching content as it is a method of teaching writing. There's no separate writing block and no separate writing curriculum. Instead, teachers of all subjects adapt the TWR strategies and activities to their current curriculum and weave them into their content instruction. But perhaps what's most revolutionary about the TWR method is that it takes the mystery out of learning to write well. It breaks the writing process down into manageable chunks and then has students practice the chunks they need, repeatedly, while also learning content.

A practical, in-depth guide to implementing formative assessment in your classroom! Formative assessment allows teachers to identify and close gaps in student understanding and move learning forward. This research-based book walks readers through every step of the process and offers illustrative examples across a range of subject areas and grade levels. This book explains how to: Clearly articulate learning progressions, learning goals, and success criteria Select strategies for assessment and provide quality feedback Engage students in self-assessment and self-management Create a classroom environment that values feedback as part of the learning process

Formative assessment informs the design of learning opportunities that take students from their existing ideas of science to the scientific ideas and practices that support conceptual understanding. Science Formative Assessment shows K-12 educators how to weave formative assessment into daily instruction. Discover 75 assessment techniques linked to the Next Generation Science Standards and give classroom practices a boost with: Descriptions of how each technique promotes learning Charts linking core concepts at each grade level to scientific practices Implementation guidance, such as required materials and student grouping Modifications for different learning styles Ideas for adapting techniques to other content areas

"This highly practical and readable book gets right down into the detail of what good formative assessment looks like in math classrooms, and shows how teachers can make this a part of their regular planning and instruction." —Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment, University College Imagine how it would feel to not worry about how to plan, teach, and check for student mathematical understandings and related proficiencies. Imagine if this important process felt like a natural, every day, part of your lesson preparation instead of an extra thing to do. This must-have resource shows the way. NCTM Past President, Francis "Skip" Fennell, and nationally-recognized mathematics educators Beth McCord Kobett and Jonathan (Jon) Wray, offer five of the most impactful, proven assessment techniques—Observations, Interviews, "Show Me," Hinge Questions, and Exit Tasks— you can implement, every day. Tried and tested by teachers just like you, you’ll find that this palette of classroom-based techniques will truly assess learning and inform teaching. Research and classroom practice indicates that formative assessment is poorly understood. This book gives you a concise, research-based, classroom-dedicated plan with lots of tools, activities, classroom vignettes, and student work to guide your daily use of these techniques – The Formative 5. Both within and between lessons, K-8 teachers of mathematics will learn to Think and go beyond assessment of learning, focusing on assessment for learning Directly connect assessment to planning and teaching Engineer effective classroom questioning, discussions, and learning tasks Provide success criteria and feedback that moves students forward Integrate the Standards for Mathematical Practice Activate student self-assessors who take ownership of their learning Includes a book study guide, tools and templates, and a companion website with downloadables and multi-media examples of student discussion in the classroom. The Formative 5 will help you build your mathematics-related formative assessment capacity through daily use of these five key techniques, leading to regularly monitored and improved learning opportunities for your students. Now Available: The On-Your-Feet Guide to The Formative 5

Written under the guidance and with the support of Dylan Wiliam, Kate Jones writes about five formative assessment strategies in action in the classroom, with a foreword from Professor John Hattie. Building on the highly successful work of Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, ideas are shared and misconceptions with formative assessment are addressed with lots of practical advice. Formative assessment in action focuses on five evidence-informed strategies that the teacher can use to support their learners to make progress. Formative assessment can help both the teacher and student understand what needs to be learned and how this can be achieved. During the learning process, formative assessment can identify students' progress as well as highlighting gaps in their knowledge and understanding, therefore giving the teacher useful insight as to what feedback and instruction can be provided to continue to move learners forward. Formative assessment takes place during the learning process. It continually informs the teacher and student as to how learning can move forward as it is happening. This is different to summative assessment, which focuses on the evaluation of student learning at the end of the process. There's a range of case studies from different subjects and key stages to show how formative assessment can be embedded across a curriculum successfully.

Best-selling author Shirley Clarke provides a wealth of high quality ideas, practical strategies, classroom examples and whole-school case studies for teachers in primary and secondary schools. The most comprehensive of Shirley Clarke's titles includes extensive examples and realia, in full colour. The book is clearly structured around the ways in which teachers actually teach, with QR coded web video clips to illustrate key points in action. - Helps teachers create an environment for pupils to be active learners, constant reviewers and self-assessors - Ensures teachers start and finish lessons effectively by initially establishing their prior knowledge and capturing their interest and finally encouraging pupil reflection to find out what has been learnt and what still needs to be developed - Develops learning by helping children articulate their understanding and focusing on constant review and improvement - Focuses on whole-school development including lesson study, assessment policies and stories from outstanding schools Chapters include: 1. Laying the foundations 2. Effective starts to lessons 3. Developing the learning 4. Effective ends to lessons 5. Whole school development

Learn everything you need to know to implement an integrated system of assessment and grading. The author details the specific benefits of formative assessment and explains how to design and interpret three different types of formative assessments, how to track student progress, and how to assign meaningful grades. Detailed examples bring each concept to life, and chapter exercises reinforce the content.

'This book places students center stage in the discussion of how we know what students know. Using formative assessment to understand student learning is a theme grounded in good teaching and good assessment!' - Jo Topps, Regional Director K-12 Alliance/WestEd 'This book incorporates current research and not only provides an explanation of the necessity of formative assessment, but offers a system for planning lessons and a variety of tools to implement formative assessment in the classroom' - Susan Leeds, Science Department Chair and Gifted Studies Teacher Howard Middle School, Winter Park, FL Research has shown that when teachers use formative assessments effectively, they have a clearer understanding of what students know and are better able to design instruction that meets learners' needs. This practical guide shows teachers how to create and implement formative assessments in their middle and high school science classrooms. Grounded in extensive and solid research, this guide covers all science content areas - physics/physical science, life science/biology, earth and space science, and chemistry - as well as five types of formative assessments: big idea questions, concept maps, evidence-to-explanation, predict-observe-explain, and multiple choice. Teachers will find additional support in: - Richly detailed, concrete examples of the five types of assessments - In-depth guidelines for implementing the assessments - Brief case studies with transcript excerpts that demonstrate how teachers have used formative assessments - Easy-to-use templates to help analyze lessons in current units and identify places for inserting formative assessments With this easy-to-use, hands-on guide, any teacher can learn how to use formative assessment strategies to improve student achievement in science.

Teams that engage in designing, using, and responding to common formative assessments are more knowledgeable about their own standards, more assessment literate, and able to develop more strategies for helping all students learn. In this conversational guide, the authors offer tools, templates, and protocols to incorporate common formative assessments into the practices of a PLC to monitor and enhance student learning