Strategies for teaching SEL skills during virtual learning

Why did you go into education? I bet it was because you love teaching and inspiring young minds. However, these days teachers are faced with an increased focus on academic benchmarks, state testing–and currently, major changes with the switch to virtual learning.

This shift in focus is causing an increase in teacher stress due to the workload, and the teacher shortage this year is at the highest we have seen in decades. How does an educator teach the important academic skills that will be measured on formative assessments, but also the meaningful life skills that will prepare each student for their future?

Related content: 8 great resources for classroom SEL…Read More

Renaissance Answers: Has There Really Been an Impact from COVID on Student Performance?

Renaissance, a global leader in pre-K–12 education technology, today announced the upcoming release of How Kids Are Performing: Tracking the Impact of COVID-19 on Reading and Mathematics Achievement, a report detailing the learning effects associated with COVID-19 school closures. Designed to end the speculation and provide guidance for educators as they address learning gaps, the report will be based on the results of millions of student assessments.

“We’re as eager as the rest of the education world to end the speculation and get to the truth of where our students are as they begin this year,” said Dr. Gene Kerns, vice president and chief academic officer at Renaissance. “This year more than any other, data is going to be key in understanding where our students are and how we can best tailor instruction to meet them there.”

Using data gleaned from Star Assessments—one of the most widely-used assessments in K–12 education—the report will explore key questions including:…Read More

CAE Partners with Education Research and Development Institute

Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CAE), a leading provider of performance-based, authentic assessments measuring essential college and career readiness skills, announced it joined the Education Research and Development Institute (ERDI). Partnering with the well-respected 35-year-old organization, CAE will contribute as a thought leader and work collaboratively to develop insights that will inform the evolution of its student-centric educational solutions and services.

“We are honored to partner with ERDI whose members comprise our country’s top education practice leaders committed to ensuring all students have access to the highest quality learning experiences,” said Bob Yayac, president and CEO of CAE. “Joining ERDI’s community allows CAE to leverage the latest in PK-12 research and on-the-ground experience to best meet the needs of students today and into the future.”

ERDI gathers top PK-12 education leaders and solutions providers from more than 250 school districts across the U.S. who are focused on the continuous improvement of public education, to analyze, discuss, and propose solutions for current problems of practice in education.…Read More

Aperture Education Updates its DESSA Comprehensive SEL System

Aperture Education, a leading provider of social-emotional assessments and intervention strategies for schools, has updated its DESSA Comprehensive SEL System to make it more intuitive for educators and administrators to use and to include more inclusive gender language. The updates include adding gender-neutral student descriptions, easy-to-read charts to showcase students’ SEL data and progress at a glance, and features to make its data-importing process more intuitive to help administrators save time.

“Once we checked the boxes of having research backed, nationally normed, industry leading assessments, the next step was to make the data generated by those assessments simple to access and easy for educators, administrators and out-of-school time providers to understand,” said Bret McDermitt, Senior Product Owner at Aperture Education. “That’s where our new updates truly shine.”

The evidence-based DESSA Comprehensive SEL System includes a suite of strength-based social-emotional learning assessments and strategies to build students’ social and emotional competence. It provides everything educators, administrators and out-of-school-time providers need to obtain actionable, reliable data for their SEL programs.…Read More

Riverside Insights Launches Battelle Early Childhood Assessment with Updated Data Validity

Riverside Insights®, a leading developer of research-based assessments that provide insights to help elevate potential, announced today the official launch of the Battelle® Developmental Inventory, 3rd Edition™ (BDI-3™) to customers in the United States and internationally, including Canada and Mexico. The enhancements to the BDI-3 include expanded digital administration and reporting tools, as well as updated standardization and norms. This makes the BDI-3 the most comprehensive early childhood assessment on the market. With this release, Riverside is also the first assessment provider to introduce an affordable subscription model that enables continued enhancements of the testing experience – from administration to reporting.

Recommended in 44 states and listed as a preferred state assessment in 16, the BDI enables early childhood development centers, schools, school psychologists, speech pathologists and private clinicians to obtain early insight into a child’s developmental progress, evaluate readiness for school, and inform eligibility for special education resources. It has consistently been the industry standard for early identification, offering the most comprehensive and up-to-date norms. The BDI-3 measures mastery of developmental milestones and behaviors from birth to age 7 years, 11 months across the five critical domains – communication, social-emotional, adaptive, motor and cognitive – and 13 subdomains.

The third edition has been expanded to include the Battelle Early Academic Survey (BEAS), which measures early foundational literacy and mathematics skills for children aged 3 years, 6 months to 7 years, 11 months.…Read More

CAE Announces Stacey Sparks as Senior Director of Content Design and Development

Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CAE), a leading provider of performance-based educational assessments measuring 21st century skills, as well as custom assessments, today announced the appointment of Stacey Sparks to senior director of content design and development. In this role, Sparks will lead content development for the services division and manage content experts and CAE’s production team.

“We are thrilled about Stacey guiding the design and development of performance-based assessments and custom solutions for our clients,” said Bob Yayac, president and CEO of CAE. “Great content is critical to effective assessments and her in-depth knowledge and experience in assessment, coupled with her outstanding writing and editing skills, strengthen our mission.”

Sparks has worked closely with clients including state departments of education, large urban school districts, multi-state consortia, and educational publishers to design and develop K-12 assessments, both formative and summative; digital and print curriculum materials; and professional development tools. She has extensive knowledge of educational frameworks and standards and is deeply committed to developing rigorous, engaging, accessible materials that promote equity and diversity. A seasoned writer and editor in English Language Arts and the humanities, Sparks previously served as a Senior Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research and a Curriculum Writer for Public Consulting Group.…Read More

Grade expectations: How to look at grading in a new light

The teacher finishes giving instructions and sits down for students to begin completing the assignment. While students work, the teacher grades papers and prepares for the next hour, answering some questions here and there. As students finish the work, the assignments get turned in to be graded later.

If this scenario sounds familiar, then you are not alone. Teachers traditionally follow the model of present, practice, and let students work independently. There is a much better use of teacher time: feedback-in-action.

Feedback-in-action shifts a teacher from treating work as an autopsy to more like an ICU. Instead of waiting for students to make mistakes and leave class, the teacher makes formative assessments the norm.…Read More

Assessment in 2020: How data will mitigate COVID-related learning losses

In normal times, a discussion about the future of assessment might look five years ahead to talk about the prospects of more authentic computer-aided assessments or potential developments in continuous assessment. However, in 2020, we have more immediate needs right in front us, and the assessment tools we may have had for years will be even more relevant.

We will start this next year with many questions. How will the lack of summative assessments from this past spring impact the coming school year? How quickly can teachers determine what students may have missed in the chaotic close of the 2019–2020 school year? How can teachers parse the interim and formative assessment data of incoming students and focus on the areas that will provide the greatest return?

Related content: Data vs. COVID: How one district runs the numbers…Read More

10 K-12 cybersecurity must-dos

Cybersecurity has always been a high priority for K-12 administrators and staff, but with the rapid push to remote learning brought on by COVID-19, school leadership has had to consider how to educate through the lens of cybersecurity.

While school years are closing up for the 2019 – 2020 year, it’s still unknown what our learning environments will look like for the 2020 – 2021 school year. Let’s look at 10 things that K-12 schools must focus on – whether the next school year takes place in person on via remote learning.

Related content: To improve cybersecurity, start at the endpoints…Read More

Free online resources to help address “summer slide”

Miacademy.co, the online homeschooling website, is proud to collaborate with ASU in offering fun, free online resources to help address “summer slide,” the loss of academic mastery during weeks away from the classroom. Many educators expect this to be profound this year, on top of the missed weeks this spring due to the pandemic, which creates their own loss of academic proficiency.

As part of ASU’s commitment to supporting parents by providing free educational resources, ASU created https://asuforyou.asu.edu/miacademy where parents can find hundreds of original teaching videos covering every K-8 grade level across every core subject.

Each of these educational videos forms part of a learning module on Miacademy.co, where student members can practice what they’ve learned, use online simulations, complete graded assessments, and work through related offline activities independently or together with family members. As an ASU For You learning partner, Miacademy is offering these videos, aligned to Arizona learning standards, free to Arizona families and all online learners. “I’m proud that Miacademy was chosen as a partner by one of the most prestigious online education providers in the U.S.,” says Dr. Johannes Ziegler, CEO of Miacademy. (Learn about Johannes and the founding of Miacademy here: https://parents.miacademy.co/help/about)…Read More

Diagnostic assessments and instructional strategies

CenterPoint has made its entire suite of products free for schools and individual teachers through the end of the school year. The list of these free resources is below.

  • Diagnostic and interim assessments in English language arts/literacy and mathematics in grades K-11. These are available on a variety of platforms (and print-based).
  • Curriculum-aligned interim assessments for EL Education (K-8) and Illustrative Mathematics (6-8 and high school). These are available on a variety of platforms (and print-based).
  • Digital and print-based formative tasks for grades K-2 to support English language arts/literacy and mathematics for early learners.
  • High school math tasks for Algebra I and Geometry. These are available in our resource library in PDF and ready to print.
  • K-2 formative tasks Designed for grades K-2, these formative tasks demonstrate a variety of ways to teach and implement key standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. These are available digitally and print-based (on our resource library).
  • Resource library of expertly developed digital tools, customizable assessments, professional learning modules, and instructional strategies, along with a curated, vetted collection of open education resources (OER).

Test Grading Cloud available to all teachers for free

Remark Test Grading Cloud available to all teachers for free, including electronic bubble sheets for distributing and grading assessments.

In an effort to assist K-12 teachers during the COVID-19 crisis with the transition from onsite to remote education, Gravic, Inc. is offering instructors a free 60-day subscription to its popular Remark Test Grading Cloud application.

Remark Test Grading Cloud is a hosted application for grading tests, quizzes and assessments. The application is typically used to create and print bubble sheets, which can be scanned and graded with any image scanner. As many educators are now working remotely, the application can still be used to assist with your grading tasks using our Electronic Bubble Sheet technology.…Read More