Join us Sunday, May 19, at 8:00 p.m. ET for our May #NCTEchat on Changing the Conversation Around Literacy Assessment with guest hosts Kathryn Mitchell Pierce (@KMPBooker) and Elisa Waingort (@ElisaW5).
This Sunday, May 18, Kathryn Mitchell Pierce and Elisa Waingort of the NCTE Standing Committee on Literacy Assessment will host #NCTEchat. The conversation will focus on facets of assessment that we can all use to help shift the conversation in an important direction.
As stated in a recent post from the committee:
Literacy assessments are valid only to the extent that they help students learn. Too often teachers are required to measure or describe some aspect of a student’s literacy performance only to enter the number for a far-away stakeholder. Just as problematically, students might engage in meaningful literacy assessment, but information about their performance is not reported for weeks or months afterward.
That disconnected idea of assessment is what the public understands. But as teachers we understand the role assessment should play and how it can work on a much deeper level. We need to learn to talk about what works more. We need to share more ideas with each other. When we do this, it becomes easier to make the case for change and to find fresh ways to improve our own practice.
The following questions will be shared during our Twitter chat, after introductions:
Q1. The most important part of assessment is knowing your students well. What are your favorite strategies for getting to know your students as learners, readers, and writers at the beginning of the year? #NCTEchat [8:10 p.m.]
Q2. Teachers are constantly engaged in observing and monitoring their students’ learning. What is the most effective tool / approach / method you use to assess and monitor your students’ literacy learning? What makes it work well? #NCTEchat [8:20 p.m.]
Q3. Quality assessment allows students to assume ownership of their own learning. In what ways have you/can we engage students in reflection on demonstrations of their learning? In discussion of goals for their learning? #NCTEchat [8:30 p.m.]
Q4. Collaborating with families and communities honors multiple literacies. In what ways have you/can we invite families and the broader community to experience demonstrations of student literacy learning? #NCTEchat [8:40 p.m.]
Q5. If folks on this chat are looking for resources to help them rethink their approach to assessment this fall, what would you recommend they read? #NCTEchat [8:50 p.m.]
We hope to see you there! Be sure to join us by using #NCTEchat.
Never participated in a Twitter chat before? Check out this guide to help you get started.