Opinion
Professional Development Opinion

Top 5 Posts From 2015 - A Retrospective

By Starr Sackstein — December 24, 2015 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

As the year nears the close, it’s always good to look back and reflect on what we’ve learned.

This year has show much growth and offered a great deal of opportunity to connect on a variety of topics.

However, the top posts all center around one of my favorite topics, assessment. It seems folks are really ready for change or at least intrigued by the idea.

Here are this year’s top 5 posts for reconsider now and in the upcoming year:

Teachers Throwing Out Grades is Happening for Real -
How does a movement take form, you may ask? It starts with an idea and then a few people who are willing to take action. That action creates a stir and perhaps inspires some and angers others, but real change starts to happen. This is how Teachers Throwing Out Grades (#TTOG) began. Read on to find out more about this growing movement.

Writing A Non-Grading Policy for Your School -

It’s time to take the no-grades policy school wide, are you ready? Read on to see the plan.

Can You Be Convinced to Change Your Grading Policy?

Since these changes have been made, my students are enjoying learning more and they have much more specific sense of how they are doing in the classes. No more, “what did I get on that?”

Are you ready to change your grading policy? Maybe it’s time. What’s the first thing that would go?

10 Tips for Offering Excellent Feedback

Giving good feedback is an art form that does require practice, so the more we do it, the better it gets. As we make feedback an integral part of the learning experience, it becomes easier to make smaller adjustments more often for optimal growth. These moments are excellent opportunities for developing deeper relationships with our students and as more trust is established, but learning can happen.

How do you determine the best way to provide feedback to your students?

Using Rubrics Does Not Ensure Student Learning

Giving feedback for learning during formative assessment is essential to student growth. If we are using rubrics as tools to help students grow as learners then they can’t be a lazy excuse to make a teacher’s life easier. Instead, they should enhance the learning experience or foregone completely.

How do you use rubrics? How do you ensure their efficacy?

As we push forward into the new year, we must take the necessary risks to put student learning in front of our comforts. Take some time to think about what you’ve learned this year and share something new that worked.

Related Tags:

The opinions expressed in Work in Progress are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.