On Thursday August 20th, the Michigan Department of Education publicized changes to its state assessments for elementary, middle, and high school students beginning in spring of 2016. After its first year of implementing the new Michigan State Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) to students, the Office of Assessment and Accountability at the Michigan Department of Education […]
Episode 007 – Authentic Assessment Monica Washington Twitter: @texastoy2014 2014 Texas Teacher of the Year On the program this week, Teachers of the Year Radio welcomes Monica Washington, who teaches 11th grade English at Texas High School in Texarkana Independent School District, the 2014 Texas Teacher of the Year. Monica is well known in the lone […]
Last month, educators from Rochester Community Schools took part in a district site visit and round table discussion on teacher evaluation with State Representative Tom McMillin (45th House District, R-Rochester Hills) a current member, and former chair, of the House Education Committee. Throughout the day, teachers and administrators expressed their thoughts, questions, and wonderings about teacher evaluation. […]
Teacher evaluation is a topic that has received a lot of attention in 2013. Earlier this year, the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness (MCEE) offered the recommendations and findings of their commissioned project on teacher evaluation in Michigan. According to their website, the MCEE was “created by Governor Rick Snyder and the legislature in 2011 as part of […]
There has been a growing demand in the past decade for accountability in public education. Policy makers, students, families, and taxpayers all want teachers to be “held accountable.” Conventional accountability in teaching is based on student achievement on standardized tests and graduation rates. A current bill (MIHB4625) up for consideration in the Michigan House of […]
In a standards-based system, the grades are dependent on one thing—student-learning outcomes. In short, only evidence of learning on a particular standard is included in a grade. Behaviors, conduct, work ethic, practice and task completion are all separated from the grade, unless they are explicitly tied to the standards in some way and measured according […]
This post was written by Michal Eynon-Lynch as a featured interview with me for Haiku Learning. It is re-posted here with permission. The words and ideas expressed here are those of Michal. Transitioning to a new style of grading is fraught with challenges; it is not a task that an educator pursues lightly. Before considering such a change, […]
