Key points:

• There are several reasons it can be problematic for teachers to be assessors
• New staffing models could create more balanced assessments and grading
• See related story: 8 questions for educators as they use assessments to support student learning

As a restaurant manager, how would you feel if you were suddenly tasked with inspecting the food in your own kitchen? Or as a gymnastics coach, how would you react if you were asked to score your own team’s performances in a competition? It’s clear that when one person is both a manager or coach and an evaluator, conflicts of interest can arise. Yet, in the field of education, it’s common for teachers to both instruct their students and grade their academic achievements.

In conventional K-12 education, teachers are expected to wear many hats. They must design and deliver effective lessons, assess student learning, manage classroom behavior, and build relationships with students and families. But what if we could unbundle the role of the teacher and distribute these responsibilities across a team of experts?

It may be time to rethink the role of the teacher as an assessor and separate the two responsibilities.

Highlighting the need for change

Here are four reasons why it’s problematic for teachers to also be assessors:

1. Inaccurate grading. Developing a reliable and objective grading system is a complex process that requires expertise in psychometrics. Teachers simply don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to this endeavor. As a result, they may resort to creating their own assessments, which may not be scientifically sound and can lead to inaccurate grading.

Key points:

• Assessment discussions are examining how AI like ChatGPT might play a role
• Individualized assessment offers a fair and equitable option to meet varying students’ needs
• See related article: Strategies for using alternative assessments in the classroom

The National Council on Measurement in Education’s (NCME) annual meeting has always offered an opportunity to learn about innovative research and new trends in student assessment. It is a chance to get hints of where the field is moving and what will be available to school districts, teachers, and students.

This year did not disappoint. There were three notable topics at the conference that signal new directions in assessment: through-year assessment, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and individualized assessment.

1. Through-Year Assessment

Through-year assessment is a type of assessment that has several different versions. In general, through-year assessment refers to testing that takes place throughout the school year to provide feedback on student progress and ultimately make a proficiency determination. At least three different sessions at NCME’s annual meeting dealt with through-year, and each one focused on a different version of it.

In one version, through-year assessment blends interim and summative assessment together. The interim assessment is given in the fall and winter, while the summative test is given in the spring, to make a proficiency determination. A second version of through-year makes proficiency determinations for specific curriculum standards as they are taught. Another version of through-year assessment is somewhat a blend of the prior two. It uses an interim assessment during the school year, but test content is cumulative, and the proficiency determination is made in the spring.

A whopping 97 percent of respondents in a recent survey say they ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ use ChatGPT to write lesson plans. Likewise, 93 percent of teachers say they use the AI platform to grade and provide feedback for students, 91 percent say to write emails, and 89 percent say to write letters of recommendation.

A survey of 1,000 high school, undergraduate, and graduate educators who are aware of ChatGPT, from online degree ranking and higher-ed planning site Intelligent.com, examines the prevalence of ChatGPT usage among both students and educators.

Among the top reasons for using the tool, 42 percent of teachers say it saves them time, 41 percent say it provides good suggestions, and 17 percent say it helps them understand ChatGPT’s capabilities.

“There’s no denying that while teaching can be a fulfilling and empowering profession, a great deal of time is used for developing lesson plans, creating assignments, reviewing homework, and much more,” said Blanca Villagomez, Intelligent.com’s education advisor. “Using ChatGPT for lesson planning can help teachers create lesson plans faster and more efficiently.”

Key points:

• Inquiry-based learning helps students become independent learners and develop critical durable skills
• This approach will ensure students can use tools such as ChatGPT, which will have a role in the future workforce

The rise of ChatGPT promises to bring simplicity to the more mundane tasks of human existence and has also revived with new fervor an enduring question of our education system: how do we adequately prepare students to thrive in the real world? How do we design worthy learning tasks, when artificial intelligence (AI) tools can do the work of a student in a fraction of the time and nearly none of the effort?

While some call for a ban of ChatGPT in schools, I suggest something entirely different. Instead of blocking ChatGPT and tools like it, consider incorporating them into classrooms through an inquiry-based learning framework.

Inquiry-based learning focuses on developing critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and creativity. This type of active learning encourages students to ask questions, analyze information, and draw their own conclusions rather than just accepting information at face value. Due to the nature of inquiry, students in inquiry-based classrooms become independent learners who are able to think for themselves while testing and verifying the answers to their own questions.

School districts are increasingly focused on preparing students to be successful in their post-academic careers. And ChatGPT—along with other technologies like it—will be a force that leaves no industry untouched. With AI capabilities advancing at breakneck speed, developing skills beyond rote memorization and formulaic response will be the key to success in an increasingly automated world. In order to prepare our students to thrive in the future, we must prepare them to understand tools like ChatGPT and use them judiciously.

Standardized tests can be hard on students. Many of us still remember the frustration and anxiety we experienced when we were younger and sat down for our first round of testing. To make matters worse, it’s fairly common for students who are doing well academically to find themselves stymied by a single bad testing experience.

This “Know-Show Gap” can prevent teachers and schools from being able to represent the good work they do for the public. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case–so long as both teachers and students plan accordingly.

By helping students prepare for tests mentally and physically, teachers can help them overcome even the trickiest of obstacles. These following strategies have been proven to help minimize the Know-Show Gap so students can prove what they really can do: 

1. Setting the Stage: A student’s environment can play a crucial role on how well they perform on a standardized test. For instance, temperature extremes can diminish student focus and impair their performance. While studies vary in their conclusions, all indicate that optimal cognition takes place between 67 and 75 degrees. Likely, a temperature between 68 and 72 will be best for helping your students perform well on standardized tests. Additionally, try to eliminate any unnecessary noise from the environment. While some people may prefer to work with music or sound, very few people actually benefit. 

Science is more than just a body of knowledge; it is the process of discovering new knowledge. Therefore, science education needs to involve more than just memorizing what scientists have already figured out. Students also need to learn about the processes that scientists use to generate new understandings about the universe. In other words, it involves understanding the Nature of Science.

The Nature of Science is what distinguishes science from other methods of knowing such as art, philosophy, or social science. The Nature of Science includes understanding that while scientific knowledge is based on empirical evidence, it is also subject to change based on new evidence. Science is a human endeavor that requires creativity, but also objectivity.

The importance of the Nature of Science is reflected in state science standards. For example, in Florida, the science standards have the Nature of Science as one of the bodies of knowledge alongside Life Science, Physical Science, and Earth and Space Science. The Nature of Science is further delineated into three big ideas: the Practice of Science, the Characteristics of Scientific Knowledge, and the Roles of Theories, Laws, Hypotheses, and Models.

Scientists engage in activities to learn about the universe. While many of us have learned about “the scientific method,” that is not an accurate description of the way that most scientists engage in their work. Instead, the practice of science tends to involve a variety of activities. Scientists formulate questions and construct ways to investigate those questions. They collect and evaluate data, engage in argumentation, and develop explanations and communicate their findings. Rather than there being a set sequence to these activities, scientists engage in them on an “as needed” basis. One way to think of these activities is as a set of tools in a scientist’s toolbox that they pull out and use when appropriate.

There are many ways that students can learn about the Nature of Science, but research on student learning has shown that students develop this understanding best by actually “doing science” in the same way scientists do. This approach to science learning helps students understand the Nature of Science and is particularly useful in developing an understanding of scientific concepts themselves.

For example, traditional instruction usually involves a teacher telling students about a particular science principle, and then showing examples to provide evidence that the principle is true. When learning about gravity and other forces, a teacher could tell students about the force of gravity and the force of air resistance, and then the explain to students that the reason a feather floats to the ground is that the pull of gravity on the feather is countered by the force of air resistance on the feather. While this approach would help students learn about gravity, it would not help them learn about the Nature of Science.

According to a recent study, grading is one of the least stressful activities early career teachers have to complete. Grading is time consuming, however, and more grading-related questions are popping up in the news these days. For instance, are teachers allowed to reduce grades for late work? Are students allowed to retake tests on which they did not do well? It is essential that teachers have a clear and supportive grading system in place to address the scrutiny of today’s students, parents, and other stakeholders.

Setting up a grading system requires more than a calculator. A philosophical foundation is important to how a teacher grades. Having a philosophical basis for grading helps instructors explain grades, their meaning, and their value to students, who may then see the grade as less arbitrary.Two common approaches to further mitigate this arbitrary nature include normative-based grading and criterion- or standards-based grading. To build a strong, meaningful grading policy, instructors must choose the approach that best fits the course design and student learning outcomes.

Instructors who choose a normative approach will grade based upon relative performance. A teacher’s fallback practice may be to grade on a curve; however, curved grading is philosophically flawed in most course level applications. Effective instructional design models and psychometrics generally anticipate that students can master an end-of-course exam with a 70 to 80 percent score. Exams that do not reflect that criteria may have been poorly designed. Otherwise, instructional challenges or lack of student engagement could be to blame. Some college courses simply provide a curved score for students to lower the failure rate or to stratify student performance. This, however, does not evidence how students understood the content. Curved grades only show how students performed in relation to other students instead of reflecting students’ mastery of the materials.

Issues with curved grading methods were especially problematic when remote teaching was enforced during the pandemic. In many cases, remote learning provided new opportunities for cheating, and students were able to buffer their grades at the expense of those who did not cheat. In traditional bell curve criteria, for each student who earns an A another must fail. Therefore, normative grading practices effectively promote a winner and loser approach to grading. For instructors looking for a more equitable classroom, normative grading tends to miss the mark.

The other common approach is criterion-based grading. Students who meet an assignment’s criteria can earn a passing grade or even an A. This offers greater potential for equity in the grading system. Most letter grade systems are effectively criterion based.  A rubric that shows what criteria students must meet to earn an A-F grade communicates clear goals and standards. Students may choose to what degree they engage with an assignment to earn an A, B, or C, for example. One extreme of criterion-based grading is standards-based grading. Students are simply judged on whether they meet the standard. The grade may be Pass/Fail or a “B” in an A-F scale. Other factors eventually shape the final grade, such as whether the instructor accepts late work or the weight of an assignment toward a final course grade.

Improving math achievement has long been a sticking point for U.S. schools, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impact on learning. Now, one Maryland school district is seeing substantial improvements in grades 6-8 math scores.

A new impact study at Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) found that students in grades 6 to 8 who used Speak Agent Math+Language outperformed their peers who did not use the program. Students who completed 10 Speak Agent learning activities experienced a 10 percent higher mean score than their peers on the PGCPS Math Benchmark assessments.

In addition, multilingual learners experienced a 17-point (five percent) higher mean score on the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs test, in addition to a higher math score. This is the first large-scale study to find a positive, independent effect at a 99.9% confidence level for both Math and English language proficiency scores, as measured by third-party assessments, caused by a single education technology program.

“We chose Speak Agent’s Math+Language program to develop middle-grade math literacy, communication, and reasoning skills,” said Dr. Michelle Dyson, PGCPS Mathematics Instructional Supervisor for Grades 6-8. “We could see students making progress, so we collaborated with our ESOL department to commission this study to quantify the impact. This research shows that our implementation – which closely integrates with our curriculum – helped students make strong gains on math and ELD assessments.”

Valentine’s Day breaks up the winter doldrums and gives students a chance to create heart-shaped crafts and share candy or gifts with classmates.

This year, give students some insight into the history behind the holiday. How did Valentine’s Day begin? Why do we celebrate it today? What IS love? And, most importantly: Which candy is your favorite?

Here are five videos that discuss Valentine’s Day, love, and the all-important heart:

1. How Did Valentine’s Day Start? Every year, millions of kids give cards and candy to their classmates. But why? Who invented Valentine’s Day, and when did it start?

2. The myth of Cupid and Psyche: Psyche was born so beautiful that she was worshipped as a new incarnation of Venus, the goddess of love. But human lovers were too intimidated to approach her, and Apollo recommended her father abandon her on a crag where she would marry “a cruel and savage, serpent-like winged evil.” But Psyche’s story ended up being much more interesting. Brendan Pelsue shares the myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Did you know that a 5th grade teacher is expected to guide students to mastery of 200 standards each year? Given a typical school year of 180 days, that’s 1.1 standards a day! Of course, standards don’t exactly work like that. You can certainly teach more than one standard a day, but that doesn’t give you time to explore them, unpack them, and revisit them, which is where learning and mastery actually happen. That’s a lot of content to cover, and not much time to do it in.

But this is only the beginning. Not all standards can be treated equally. Some have limited application and require lower levels of critical thinking; others are foundational to future learning and broadly applicable. So, how do we even begin to tackle this mess? How can teachers determine their power standards and assess student mastery in a way that’s both fun and effective?

One way to begin is by utilizing a scoring system to single out the standards that align to the chief priorities in your classroom. Consider implementing the following categories and grading them on a scale of 1–5: 

1. Building Block: How much future learning is dependent on this standard?
2. Cross-Curricular Utility: How applicable is this standard across content areas?
3. Higher Level Thinking: What depth of thinking does this standard require? Consider using our Standards Scoring Sheet to help you prioritize those power standards.

Once you’ve identified the standards you feel are most important for your students’ long-term success, it’s time to explore new ways of assessing these skills. A plain-ole paper-and-pencil test tends to get dry and dull pretty quickly, so take this opportunity to experiment with new assessment strategies and determine which ones work best for your students. Here are just five alternative assessment strategies teachers can try in their classroom:

1. 5-Word Challenge: Challenge students to summarize their learning in 5 words or less (this can be on video or on paper or other mode of communication). See it in action (30-second video) with students sharing what they learned about food webs in 5 words (or less).
2. Stars and Stairs: Challenge students to use the Stars and Stairs graphic organizer to track their progress against a particular learning target or goal. It promotes student ownership of learning and provides a quick visual of progress. Great for sharing with parents and admins as well.
3. Present and Defend: Have students share their work and defend their claim in response to constructive feedback. This allows you to see how students respond to challenges and how deep their understanding of the topic really goes. Great for developing a culture of risk-taking and developing students’ ability to exercise informed skepticism. Here is an example of a Present and Defend protocol used in science investigations. This is a great framework that can be adapted for all content areas and grade levels.  
4. Journaling: Ask students to capture their learning (or their reflections on their learning) in an ongoing logbook or journal. Journals give insight into the process of learning and can help you identify where in the process there may be a break in understanding. They also support student construction of meaning as well as an opportunity to apply metacognition skills. Here’s a sample Reflection Journal from the PBL unit, State of Sustainability.
5. 3 Strikes, You’re In!: Track student progress against specific power standards or goals by logging three consecutive examples of mastery. This tool allows you to focus on your most critical learning objectives and to ensure each student succeeds.

As we begin a new year, it’s important that we ask ourselves what we want to accomplish in this coming season. I’ve often found that the best classrooms are those that carefully balance timeless knowledge with innovations that push boundaries. I truly believe that now is the time for boldness. Let’s dare to think outside the box, try something new, and make 2023 a year to remember in the world of education!

Related:
8 questions for educators as they use assessments to support student learning
Designing fair and inclusive tests for non-native speakers

When I was growing up, I assumed that my teachers knew everything, including all of the “right answers.” Now that I’ve been a teacher for 15 years, I know this simply isn’t true. In fact, some of the most powerful learning in my middle school science classroom has happened when I’ve pretended to NOT know the “right answer.” That’s when students take the lead and start to offer up their own ideas, share their experiences, and make powerful connections—sometimes amazing ones that I would never have thought of.

Teaching in this way requires a good deal of flexibility—including in your curriculum. A traditional science textbook doesn’t always provide educators the freedom to delve into topics that students bring up from their own lives or questions they have about the world around them. That’s why I’ve turned to open educational resources (OER).

OER are openly licensed, which means that educators can use, customize, and share these resources for free, allowing them to incorporate material that’s fresh and relevant for their students—all without having to worry about traditional copyright restrictions. I’ve been using an OER science curriculum called OpenSciEd for five years, and it has completely revolutionized the way I teach. It’s also transformed the way my students relate to and take ownership for their learning.

My students come from not only all over city but also all over the world. Our student population represents more than 30 languages, and many of them are new to learning English. They bring rich life experiences to the classroom, and OpenSciEd enables them to talk about those experiences and knowledge more so than any other curriculum I’ve used.

In a unit about mountain formation, we discussed how an earthquake shifted Mount Everest and made it taller. One of my students who came from Nepal shared that she had been to Mount Everest and was able to describe the environment and terrain for her classmates.

In another unit on ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity, students looked into how the harvesting of palm oil, a common ingredient in chocolate, can endanger the habitats of orangutans. One of my students came from Cameroon, which is one of the world’s top producers of palm oil. He spoke proudly of seeing orangutans and the palm trees that produced the oil, and he enthusiastically worked with his classmates to design a palm oil farm that benefited both the orangutans and farmers in his home country. All of this happened because I stepped back—and because the instructional materials gave my students opportunities to find meaningful connections to their lives.

In addition, because the OpenSciEd curriculum is fully editable, I’ve been able to make changes to meet my students where they are. For example, I’ve edited the student-facing slides to break up the language, and I’ve added sentence starters and “drag and drops” into our digital notebooks to scaffold the learning for our English learners. I also love that I can take this high-quality curriculum and rearrange the order of the units, remove material that isn’t as relevant to our school or students, and even add in other materials, like district-created units.

Having used OpenSciEd for five years now, I’m confident that I’ll never go back to teaching with a traditional textbook. My students are more excited about science than ever, and they’re connecting what they’re learning to their lives and experiences.

Open educational resources like OpenSciEd are a critical tool for teachers who, like me, want their students to see themselves and their experiences reflected in what they’re learning—and to find their own connections and “right answers.”   

Related:
How to find, curate, and assess OER
5 steps to implement OER in your LMS

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on innovative ways to engage students, digital resources, and online and hybrid learning strategies related to post-pandemic teaching. This year’s 8th most-read story focuses on Black History Month resources educators can use throughout the school year.

During Black History Month, educators have the opportunity to delve into the difficult–and often uncomfortable–experiences of Black people in the U.S. and around the world.

Perhaps one of the most important “do’s” is this: Don’t limit your teaching of Black history to the month of February.

Check out these learning resources (last year’s resources are available here) to get started in February and to plan out how to include Black history in your teaching throughout the academic year.

1. The NEA’s site offers a great selection of resources to help students understand the Black experience in U.S. history. Lessons plans cover a number of subjects and can be adapted to fit multiple grade levels. A lesson on Musical Harlem for grades 3-5 lesson helps students learn about the Harlem Renaissance as they create original jazz artwork. In another lesson, The Illusion of Race, students in grades 6-8 investigate both genetic and societal consequences of the often-artificial and evolving classifications of race and ethnicity.

2. National Geographic is launching a powerful new podcast, Into the Depths, which uncovers the deep history of the transatlantic slave trade as it follows a group of Black divers who are dedicated to finding and helping to document slave shipwrecks. The podcast will also be accompanied by a cover story in the March issue of National Geographic magazine, available online on Feb. 7, and a National Geographic documentary special, Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship, premiering Feb. 7, on National Geographic and available to stream next day on Hulu. The podcast features over 40 voices, including underwater divers and archaeologists–descendants of those brought over on the ships, historians, and a variety of experts whom National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts works with to uncover these stories.

3. The Center for Racial Justice in Education believes that the histories, stories, and voices of Black people should be centered, honored, and uplifted in school curricula every day. The Center also acknowledge the importance, relevance and origins of Black History Month. Resources to use throughout the school year include those that celebrate Black History Month, tools that highlight the underrepresentation of Black stories and experiences in schools, how and why to bring attention to equality and racial justice movements, and more.

4. Black Lives Matter at School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education. The site encourages all educators, students, parents, unions, and community organizations to join the annual week of action during the first week of February each year.​ Educators and organizers from around the country worked collaboratively to curate a variety of classroom resources for every age group. These resources are all free of charge and meant to be shared and used. The goal of these lessons and activities is to challenge racism and oppression and providing students with the vocabulary and tools needed to take action.

5. The African American History Month’s website puts the power of primary sources to work in the classroom. Educators can browse ready-to-use lesson plans, student activities, collection guides and research aids. Access thousands of primary sources and an ever-expanding collection of document-based activities spanning the course of American history created by the National Archives and teachers around the world. Discover the activities, such as Analyzing a Letter from Jackie Robinson: “Fair Play and Justice,” The Impact of Bloody Sunday in Selma, We Shall Overcome: March on Washington, and Examining Where Rosa Parks Sat.

6. Black history is American history, but finding (or creating) interactive lessons that help students draw connections between history and modern day can be challenging. That’s why WeAreTeachers offers the 306: African American History and 306: Continuing the Story high school curriculums from EVERFI. You’ll have everything you need to plan lessons and engaging activities for grades 8-12 that are meaningful, turn-key, and free.

7. The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration launched a Black History Month package of fresh and engaging virtual and interactive real-world expeditions for students that cover significant historical, cultural and societal events. CILC’s 10 virtual fieldtrips transcend other well-intentioned, but often one-dimensional and overly simplified narratives of African American historical figures by providing students with a detailed look at the encounters, achievements, and heroism of everyday African Americans throughout history.

Related:
3 ways educators can embrace and enable inclusive programming
8 ways I embraced mindfulness this year

Our first look at long-term trends in reading and math assessments since the pandemic began affirm what many education professionals were anticipating. 

The National Association for Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” recently issued its signature report, which revealed that students assessed during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced significant declines in both mathematics and reading. NAEP’s 2022 data shows that “average scores at both grades [eighth and fourth] were not significantly different in comparison to the first reading assessment [20 years prior] in 1992.”

And while reading score declines as measured by various student assessments during COVID-19 are alarming, they are not unexpected given the profound obstacles students have faced.

Now, with data in hand, the critical work of getting students back on track toward reading on grade level by the fourth grade begins. The silver lining is: With a focus on creating more equitable opportunities for individualized support for students, they can and will catch up.

School systems have significant work to address inequitable opportunities and challenges that were already occurring prior to the time COVID-19 disrupted school operations in spring 2020, and we are aware that many students had inequitable access to the technology and quality instruction that other students received during the last two school years. Many other adults outside the school system can and must also play important roles in student learning and support, such as family members, tutors, counselors, and mental health professionals.

Certainly, addressing the needs of all students (especially after a global pandemic) could never boil down to a common formula, yet this is a critical time to ensure that proven methods for teaching foundational literacy skills enable educators, family members, tutors, and others to effectively support student literacy development.

1. Literacy instruction must be rooted in the science of reading

Reading is a vital foundational skill for navigating an increasingly complex world, yet it is not a natural skill. The process of making meaning from symbols on a page or a digital device is complex. For students who struggle with reading, it is even more crucial that they receive systematic instruction, consistent exposure to quality learning materials, and many opportunities for practice.

There’s a significant body of scientific research available to better understand how we learn to read. And the methodology with the most significant base of scientific evidence, often referred to as the “Simple View,” establishes that the process of comprehending what we read involves sounding out and recognizing words in addition to making meaning of the words strung together in a sentence. This process relies heavily on phonological awareness and phonics for word recognition and decoding along with explicit and consistent instruction.

Despite significant evidence showing that phonics-based instruction is the most effective method, it has not been broadly adopted within the U.S. education system. To get students back on track with their literacy development, science-based instruction should be central since it is proven to be the most effective path for most students.

2. Engaging and motivating students begins with a warm, positive, two-way relationship

Learning to read is not easy. It’s a skill that takes time, practice, patience, and structured support to become proficient. For this reason, students often respond well to positive encouragement and support from family members, educators, tutors, and other trusted allies. These trusting relationships may become particularly important when students develop negative feelings associated with reading, and could use some extra positive reinforcement.

Related:
How our reading platform changed our instruction
K-12 staffing shortages threaten reading instruction–AI can help

Math and reading scores demonstrate more variability post-COVID, primarily due to a larger gap between low and high academic achievers, according to NWEA, a nonprofit research and educational services organization serving K-12 students.

NWEA has released new research findings that examine to what degree students’ reading and math test scores have become more variable during the pandemic, and how achievement gains across the pandemic compare to pre-pandemic trends for students who were low- or high-achieving before the pandemic started.

The research used test scores from more than 8 million US students in grades 3 – 8 across 24,000 public schools who took MAP^® Growth assessments in reading and math comparing results from students who tested during COVID-interrupted school years (2019-20 through 2021-22) and students who tested prior to the onset of the pandemic (between 2016-17 and 2018-19).

Key findings are:

• Math and reading test scores are more variable in spring 2022 than spring 2019, indicating that students – based on their current achievement levels – are more different from one another now than before the pandemic.
• Increased variability is primarily driven by a widened distance between low and high achievers given students with lower achievement experienced larger initial impacts at the onset of the pandemic and less improvement during 2021-22.

“There’s no question that the pandemic’s disruptions to learning were profound, but the level and depth of that impact was not equal across all students,” said Dr. Karyn Lewis, one of the authors of the new study. “As we urgently work toward recovery, continuing to understand which students were harmed the most and the magnitude of their unmet needs will keep the focus on them as a priority to ensure appropriate interventions are provided.”

Related:
7 strategies to counter student learning loss
When it comes to learning loss, don’t reinvent the wheel

School models are, for the most part, outdated–and very overdue for replacement. When students reach high school, research shows that close to 66 percent of students are disengaged. But even students who do successfully navigate their schooling emerge with only a specific (and often narrow) skillset that may or may not match their strengths or interests.

Conventional schooling often leaves students disillusioned, questioning their intelligence and value as it is framed by a system that needs an overhaul.

Learner-centered education can play a critical role in reshaping education systems, offering a more holistic approach to meeting learners’ needs and helping students find fulfillment in their academic accomplishments.

K-12 Value Networks: The Hidden Forces That Help or Hinder Learner-Centered Education, a new report from the Clayton Christensen Institute and authored by CCI senior research fellow Thomas Arnett, offers insight into understanding why schools struggle to change their instructional models, along with tips to establish and support learner-centered education models.

Program leaders, sponsors, learners and their families, staff, community partners, and funders are all critical to the success of these learner-centered education models.

The report describes how five different learner-centered education models–The Met, Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, Iowa BIG, Village High School, and Embark Education–were able to launch and grow their models by assembling value networks congruent with their vision for learner-centered education.

1. The Met: The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, known as The Met, is a network of six small, public high schools located in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. The hallmark of The Met’s learner-centered model is that its learners go out in their communities for two days out of the week to lead real-world projects as interns for partner organizations. For example, learners might work with a local bakery, a law firm, a tech company, or a recording studio.

When learners join the Met, they and their families work with an advisor to identify their strengths, needs, and interests, and then develop an individualized learning plan with an internship as its centerpiece. Learners are responsible for researching potential internship opportunities and communicating with partner sites to arrange their internships. Advisors coach them as they do their research and outreach to ensure that internships match their needs and interests.

2. Virtual Learning Academy Charter School: The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS) is a statewide virtual school created in 2007 that serves K–12 learners throughout New Hampshire. The concept for the school came from the superintendent of the Exeter Region Cooperative School District, who saw an opportunity to take advantage of a new charter school law to apply for a statewide charter. Rather than create another conventional school, however, the superintendent recognized the distinctive value of using a virtual school model to offer a wide array of flexible, part-time and full-time learning options unavailable through brick-and-mortar campuses.

VLACS’s competency-based model is highly adaptable to learners’ needs and interests. It offers a range of options for learners to earn credits: through online courses, learner-designed projects, and out-of-school learning experiences such as internships and travel. Learners who take online courses move through those courses at their own pace and earn credit whenever they’re able to demonstrate mastery of designated competencies. For projects and other learning experiences, VLACS aligns these experiences with state learning standards and then measures learners’ mastery of standards using performance-based assessments.

Related:
What data tells us about student-centered learning
5 ways peer networks lead to better student support systems

Educators, students, and families weathered historic interruptions in learning over the past few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Student achievement, predicted to slide in the ongoing chaos, revealed its fragile nature in the NAEP’s recently released Long-Term Trend results from 2020–2022. The report showed the first-ever decline in mathematics and the most significant drop in reading achievement since the 1980s.

Effective student data analysis

As educators address this new landscape, accurate interventions to accelerate student learning are in demand. In order to know what type of intervention a student needs, high-quality data remain an essential element for educators. Teacher review and understanding of students’ data will guide instructional decisions and create positive outcomes for all students.

Proper analysis of student data is a skill worth developing. Educators need to:

• Review prior intervention outcomes
• Identify each student’s current learning needs
• Select the best intervention to match these needs
• Measure the effectiveness of interventions

In order to make sense of prior efforts to address student learning needs, teachers can review historical data trends to view the complete picture of a student’s learning progress.

Gathering and analyzing multiple data points over weeks and months is the most accurate method to inform instruction. Pulling a single data point for use can be tempting, especially when the pressure to implement interventions is intense, but caution is recommended here. A single data point may show an aberration. If educators act upon a single data point, they may implement unnecessary, time-wasting interventions. Taking the long view by analyzing long-term data and identifying historical trends and patterns provides a solid base to draw from to guide instructional decisions.

Historical trends: An effective gauge for student mastery

Viewing historical trends in student data involves reviewing the lows and the highs of a student’s performance over time and helps educators identify where a student is succeeding and where deficits remain. Only multiple data points over months and sometimes years can accurately depict a student’s mastery level. Reviewing student data starting in November each year provides educators with qualitative and quantitative student performance patterns that can inform future instruction.

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Grade retention is ineffective and expensive, but 17 states and Washington, D.C. mandate it (and at least 12 more states allow it) for students who are not reading proficiently by grade 3. The best way to stop grade retention, whether you live in a state with laws mandating it or not, is to provide students with explicit, phonics-based literacy instruction rooted in the science of reading, beginning in kindergarten.

Here’s how schools and districts can help students begin learning to read on track and stay there to avoid retention.

Who Gets Retained?

The number of students retained has fallen recently, from 3.1 percent in 2000 to 1.9 percent in 2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Being held back makes life harder for these students in the long run. It doesn’t make their lives better or more prosperous, just more difficult and challenging, and we do it despite a poor track record for retention policies and without a solid base of scientific research demonstrating that it’s best for kids.

Retaining students based solely on their reading achievement is punishing them for a failure in a specific area, but the punishment will not have effects in that area alone, but in the rest of their lives. Retention takes away their social group and identifies them for all their peers as not being good enough to advance.

Students who are successful in school have more going for them than just academics. They have reasons to come to school other than reading, like sports, clubs, friends, or even other academic subjects. But when they get held back, it destroys or hurts all those other areas that provide them the intrinsic motivation to come to school and keep working hard not just at the things they love, but at the things they struggle with, as well.

Giving Students Evidence-Based Curricula

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) recently released data finding that reading scores have dropped for the first time in more than 30 years. It may not be surprising to see record-breaking declines following a pandemic that massively disrupted learning, but the truth is that NAEP scores are more or less disappointing almost every year.

The reason why is that the educational system is not addressing the root cause. Lawmakers are really hyper-focused on 3rd grade with their retention laws, but the problem starts at least as far back as kindergarten and the curricula schools use to teach reading.

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Over the past decade, industries across the world have voiced their concern over the lack of tech skills among high school and college graduates. At the end of 2020, there were an estimated 1.4 million unfilled computer science jobs; this figure continues to rise.

However, the education sector’s response is that currently less than half of high schools teach, and only 5 percent of students go on to further computer science study.

It’s not just about educating our students to take a computer science career path. Today, computer science skills are used and applied across all areas of the curriculum and a broad range of careers.

Therefore, in Humble Independent School District, we decided to address this issue by giving more students the opportunity to experience the excitement of computer science.

It wasn’t easy.

The challenges

As all schools recognize, teachers find it hard enough to fit a high-quality education of the core curriculum subjects into each day. A lot of students, especially girls, believe that CTE “isn’t for them” because “it’s too hard,” “too complicated” and “only involves sitting at a computer screen.” Added to this, there is no defined curriculum to teach to and, as with the gap in skills in the workforce, there is also a lack of teachers either qualified or wanting to teach computer science.

Something for everyone

So, in Humble, we wanted to offer enough courses to attract a wider range of students.

We started by painting a portrait of a graduate and the skills they need. Two of the most important attributes of a global citizen are having problem solving and critical thinking skills. To be a good critical thinker and problem solver, people need to be able to take any one task and structure it into manageable chunks, one of the main skills that is developed in computer science. Students who are problem solving orientated will always be able to adapt and thrive in this ever-changing world.

Through this initiative, we started offering our students 170 different CTE course; from cosmetology and cyber-security to automotive and robotics. Our belief is that if we offer them a wide range of opportunities, we’re more likely that they will elect to embark on a learning pathway and develop a deep understanding of an area of CTE.

Starting early

The next step was to introduce this from the early years.

In most elementary grades coding lessons start with game development, which is seen by many, including me, as the ideal way to introduce students to computer science. For the early years, Scratch is a popular option. The use of block-based programming gives these young kids an easy, visual entry into developing games. Many studies have shown that the simplicity of the Scratch environment may be the reason for higher engagement in the early years.

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Inflation hit a four-decade high in the United States during September, with the consumer price index up 8.2 percent from a year earlier. While most adults are painfully aware of higher prices for everything from food to fuel, teens may be blissfully ignorant.

There are a few reasons inflation may not feel relevant to teens. If teens aren’t yet working and earning their own money, they’re buying things with their parent’s funds. The cure for inflation is simply to ask mom or dad for more money. Working teens will definitely be feeling the burn of increased prices, but their time horizon tends to be focused on today versus how inflation will impact them decades down the road.

Storytelling can be an effective way for teachers to make topics like inflation relevant to students. Storytelling makes abstract concepts come to life and can help students envision themselves in the story.

Here are three ways storytelling can make a dry topic like inflation interesting.

1. Make it personal. Most families have stories about how soaring prices are impacting them today or have in the past. Look for these stories and work them into discussions. For example, in the early 1970s, an oil embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) resulted in oil prices jumping 350 percent. Since gas was in short supply, many states rationed gas, often by either limiting the amount consumers could buy or on which days they could gas up. Lines for gas stretched for miles. Waiting for hours for gas will be an interesting concept to teens used to the near-instant gratification available via their cell phones. Alternatively, inflation is causing members of some families today to delay retirement or re-enter the workforce to make ends meet. A discussion about the effect of inflation on seniors and those with fixed incomes will hit home for many teens.
   
   Related:
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   Problem-based learning helped boost my underserved students’ engagement

Roughly 20 percent of U.S. residents, which is approximately 67.3 million people (equal to the population of France), speak a language other than English at home, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. When it comes to taking tests not in their first language, these groups can be at a notable disadvantage – especially for tests that influence a test-takers’ future. 

Language is a significant barrier to fair and inclusive testing, particularly if language fluency is not relevant to the skill being measured by the test. This is why designing fair and inclusive tests for non-native speakers is a key component of equitable testing.

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that migrants, on average, get significantly lower literacy and numeracy test scores than native speakers. About half of it relates to the language of the test, meaning that if the migrants were tested in their own language, about half the difference would disappear.

As globalization and migration increase, it’s become critical to make tests fair for those whose native language is different from that of the test language. Passing a test is often a gateway to life chances, so all takers should be given the chance to demonstrate their capabilities.

Use simple wording for questions and instructions

One of the most straightforward ways to solve language barriers and increase test accessibility is by using simple wording throughout the test. For example, use “with” instead of “in conjunction with.” Some top practices include:

• Write simple, clear and concise questions. Similarly, use clear and unambiguous instructions on how to complete the test.

• Avoid colloquialisms, idioms, slang, irony and sarcasm, – i.e., words and phrases that only native speakers understand.

• Also avoid long sentences, complex grammar, double negatives and metaphors – phrases that complicate understanding.

Simple language allows for less room for misunderstanding for a reader, and it makes translating easier. These practices also help improve the test for all test-takers, regardless of their native language.

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