Educators | Professional Development Leaders

During these full day sessions, Dr. Anne Davies will teach you about the key lessons in these critical aspects of assessment for learning. Further, she will ensure that you leave with the knowledge, tools, resources and practical strategies you need to help others in your professional learning community learn more about the following topics:

• Quality Evidence of Learning
• Feedback For Learning
• Setting Criteria and Developing Rubrics With Students
• Reduce Marking While Increasing Quality Feedback
• Collecting and Organizing Evidence of Learning
• Meeting the Classroom Assessment Challenge: Supporting With Professional Learning Conversations

Quality Evidence of Learning

Communicating with parents is more important than ever. Participants will look at practical ways students are taking a lead role in showing proof of their learning by using work samples or demonstrations. This informal type of communication offers parents the opportunity to see some of the learning that is taking place in classrooms without coming to the school for formal meetings or conferences.

Materials Needed: Conferencing and Reporting and a comprehensive handout

Time Required: Full or partial day

Feedback For Learning

In this session, Dr. Anne Davies will help professional development leaders learn ways to help participants plan to assess and collect evidence of learning with the ‘end in mind’ while ensuring that the classroom evidence collected is reliable and valid. The session leads participants through a practical process that they can use to build teachers’ confidence while increasing the quality of the classroom collection of evidence of learning. Participants will leave with concrete ideas to use with colleagues.

Materials Needed for This Professional Learning Conversation: Making Classroom Assessment Work and Quality Evidence of Learning: A Complete Video Resource Package

Time Required: Full day

Setting Criteria and Developing Rubrics With Students

Our brains can’t learn without quality feedback – feedback that helps one understand what to keep doing, what to stop doing, and what to do differently. Together teachers and students are learning ways to increase the specific, descriptive feedback students receive to support their learning during the learning. This session will focus on a variety of ways to help educators ensure that students are receiving enough quality feedback-feedforward information to support their learning. During this session, participants will review the research, learn ways to present the key ideas to their colleagues, and practice activities to deepen educators’ understandings during their presentations.

Materials Needed for This Professional Learning Conversation: Knowing What Counts series and Feedback for Learning: A Complete Video Resource Package

Time Required: Full day

Reduce Marking While Increasing Quality Feedback

Precious energy is spent “marking” student work. How can we offer students the kind of information they need to learn while reducing marking? The purpose of this session is to provide professional development leaders with the understandings, tools, and resources they need to help educators learn about practical, effective ways of assessing student work in ways that support learning and increase achievement without marking or grading it.

During this session, participants will determine ways to help teachers understand how to increase the sources of feedback available to students and learn ways to respond to student work without marking or grading.

Materials Needed for This Professional Learning Conversation: Setting and Using Criteria and Reducing Marking: A Complete Video Resource Package

Time Required: Full day

Collecting and Organizing Evidence of Learning

If classroom assessment is to support learning there needs to be a range of evidence collected. Involving students in the process is key. This session will focus on ways professional development leaders can help teachers learn ways of collecting and organizing evidence of learning in a standards-based classroom. Specific ideas for involving students in collecting and organizing evidence will be presented while participants explore:

• ways of observing student learning in relation to the standards
• different strategies for collecting products of student work
• the value of talking and listening to learners

Materials Needed for This Professional Learning Conversation: Making Classroom Assessment Work and Collecting and Organizing Evidence of Learning: A Complete Video Resource Package

Time Required: Full or partial day

Meeting the Classroom Assessment Challenge: Supporting With Professional Learning Conversations

This session will help you – a learning leader – support your professional learning community as they understand more about assessment for learning. Classroom assessment has been proven to help all learners – especially struggling learners – learn more. This three-day Institute will help you learn the practical skills and strategies to take advantage of the benefits of involving students in the assessment and learning process. This session will make your leadership in the area of classroom assessment more manageable and much easier. It will give you the tools to use with your learning community.

Spend time with Dr. Anne Davies and leave with the skills and resources you need to provide the leadership that is so critical in this area. The practical tools, ideas and useable resources you will take away are designed for use by professional learning communities. They make your job easier while enabling you to help others help themselves. This session will enable your school’s leadership team to provide leadership in this critical area, without overwhelming you or your already busy colleagues.

Materials Needed: The Facilitator’s Guide to Classroom Assessment K-12 and a comprehensive handout