Tuesday Teaching Point December 10

Tuesday Teaching Point

December 10, 2013

·       Equitable Access to Rigorous, Standards-based Instruction

·       Results-focused Professional Learning and Collaboration

·       Strong Partnerships with Families and Community

·       A Culturally-Responsive Organization

Teaching Point:

If they are truly expecting high quality student examples of work, teachers must know what an exemplar work looks like for their class. The exemplar is the model (or a model) of what you expect to see before the student turns in the work to you. As we learned about the APEX protocol for looking at student work, and built our rubrics, we were asked to “dream up” what our perfect piece would look like for an assignment to be evaluated. This would be the example of the best student work we wish would be turned into us. In a three tiered evaluation, there is the exemplar work, and then the work that needs improvement. The bottom tier is none, or irrelevant work to the assignment given.

In this blog, I have shared with you pictures of example posted learning objectives. Though I have a clear vision of all the components, I have not yet seen our exemplar posted teaching point. For our purposes regarding teaching point, an exemplar would include; Student friendly/relatable language, a connection to a standard, reflected in an assessment, part of a broader idea, repeated and restated in multiple ways, concisely worded statement of what the student will learn, and should be able to do. Haven’t quite seen it yet. And I still haven’t seen consistency across classrooms (but hope to by June).

My point (and hope) is that you capture the exemplar student work to which you aspire for all of your students to meet. My challenge is for you, is to send me a fantastic teaching point that you have posted in the past or have been developing. My aim is to share what has been shared with me. Then I too, will have an exemplar to share that meets my highest expectation for student work.

Teaching Standard:

CDIF 3D Using Assessment in Instruction. Distinguished teachers allow students to assess their work against exemplars pieces of work or rubrics describing what is expected in the highest order. 5D Assessment for Learning; students evaluate their work using rubrics and examples of other students work which meets or exceeds standard.

Teaching Assessment:

So that I can understand your grasp of exemplar I am asking that you send me, or show me, an exemplar of student work you are using in your classroom. If you don’t have the work I would hope to see a description or the “perfect piece” that students can access or evaluate their own work against. I already know that many of you have several examples of this, and indeed exemplars. In lieu of a student work exemplar please take a stab at the perfect Teaching Point. I’d love to read what you have used or are using. Who knows, maybe I’ll share it and use as my exemplar of teaching point. By Friday please.

Professional Collaboration and Learning:

Friday PCT for New Start is collaborative Advisory Planning. At CHOICE Common Core in LA/SS will be discussed and examples shared. Please come prepared to your PCT. 12:30 CHOICE, 1:00 New Start. Standby for room locations.

Stay warm -

Your Instructional Leader,

Mike