Learning Opportunity

Assessment Principles ? Getting Up to Speed and Looking at What Still Holds True While Students Work from Home

This session has been completed.
Facilitators: Rick Wormeli Susan Woo
Date:August 25, 2020
Time:4:00 pm to 6:00 pm MTN
Cost:
$25.00
Location: Virtual
Session Code: 20-AS-428
Type:
Webinar
Focus: Assessment

About this Learning Opportunity

In the last quarter of the 2019-2020 school year, the Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium presented four sessions with Rick Wormeli on Assessment & Grading to Support Learning at Home, focusing on effective principles and practices, particularly in our challenging situation with all students learning at home instead of in their school buildings due to the pandemic outbreak of Covid-19. In three two-hour, interactive sessions, we examined assessment and grading principles and how they apply to grading while students are learning at home, differentiated instruction, descriptive feedback techniques, and how to minimize cheating and plagiarizing. These were followed by a Question and Answer session in which participants’ follow-up questions regarding these topics were answered.  

As we look at the lessons learned during this emergency teaching period of the last few months, we are re-shaping our priorities regarding required and/or blended remote instruction in the year ahead. Interest in ethical, accurate, and pedagogically effective instruction, assessment, and grading practices has emerged as a result. If you weren’t able to take part in these webinars, the links to those recordings will be shared on each session page that aligns. We ask that all participants review the appropriate recordings prior to each corresponding webinar to ensure continuity for your professional learning. 

To continue supporting Alberta educators in this effort, ERLC is offering a series of presentations by Rick Wormeli for the 2020-21 school year that extend ideas from the Assessment & Grading to Support Learning at Home series, and introduce new content supportive of those principles that apply to both in-person AND remote learning scenarios. Each webinar is an important element to address assessment and grading challenges for Alberta. 

It is highly recommended that participants register for all five sessions in this series and as a school cohort to fully engage in a cycle of action research towards developing a deeper understanding of how specific research/evidence-based pedagogical approaches can positively impact student learning.

Day 1: August 25th 4 - 6 pm

Please review the following video prior to this webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edxgOP5y4AA&t=50s

This session revisits some of the foundational assessment principles from the spring session, but adds to those principles, creating guiding tenets for useful assessment, whether students are learning in our classrooms or while social distancing at home. We’ll look at specific elements of assessment, including distinctions among:

  • formative/common/summative/alternative/pre-assessments
  • diagnostic vs evaluative roles
  • validity/reliability
  • becoming evidentiary
  • analyzing student products against evidence
  • designing prompts and alternative assessments
  • dispelling common assessment myths 

This webinar provides foundational assessment and grading principles in preparation for the year ahead. 


You Might Also Be Interested In:

Day 2 - October 1st  4 - 6 pm: “Cultivating Teacher Creativity and Intellect”
Day 3 - October 28th 4 - 6 pm: “Differentiated Instruction: Taking It to the Next Level”
Day 4 - Nov 17th 4 - 6 pm: “What the Text is Summarization?! Why Should I Use It for Learning and Assessment?”
Day 5 - Dec 3rd 4 - 6 pm: “Descriptive Feedback: A Deeper Dive”

This session is being offered on a cost recovery basis.

About the Facilitator

Rick Wormeli is an experienced classroom and building educator who now writes professional articles and education books while training teachers, principals, superintendents, business organizations, school boards, and parents in North America and around the world. Emphasizing up-to-date pedagogy, innovation, and professionalism, Rick’s work often focuses on nine topics: assessment/feedback/grading, differentiated instruction, leadership, literacy, motivation, cognitive science/linguistics, teacher-student relationships, racism and creativity. He has achieved many honors in his career, including being in the first group of Nationally Board Certified Teachers in the United States, winning the Outstanding English Teacher of the Nation award from Disney's American Teacher Awards, and being granted the James P. Garvin Award for Teaching Excellence, Service, and Leadership.

Twitter: @rickwormeli2