Reading  and  Assessment    Wednesday  Workshop  September  11,  2013  Agenda  and  Feedback    

 1a. This session was beneficial.

1b. Why or why not? Strongly Agree

getting everyone together to see what is needed and get thoughts

Strongly Agree

Always beneficial to collaborate with colleagues. Lots of ideas, new and old.

Strongly Agree

Very meaningful and relevant to what we are doing/can be doing in class at this moment.

Strongly Agree

As much as we discuss assessment I have never felt truly comfortable with the difference in formative and summative until today.

Agree I like hearing what Pre-K is doing for their reading program Strongly Agree

Ideas were shared and considered between my peers I would love to try in our classroom!

Strongly Agree

I got the best definition of formative and summative assessment! I also got to brainstorm and discuss with teachers and feel comfortable sharing my ideas.

Strongly Agree

This is a needed conversation that has been delayed too long! It was very helpful for me to hear the perspectives of the classroom teachers and how they view reading in their rooms.

Strongly Agree

our assessment will be stronger

Agree I gained knowledge in understanding how to use continuous Formative Assessment in teaching EED Science. It really helped me to realize the differences in Summative and Formative. I will strive to use Formative assessment.

Strongly Agree

Learned about formative and summative definitions of learning. Also learned "for" and "of" learning.

Strongly Agree

To get more of an idea of what we are doing and what we should be doing. I liked to see what the threes are doing as to what they should know when they come to us. I wonder if there is another program that we may want to use or add to help them start recognizing letters earlier and the sounds that they make. I have a program we used at my last school and it was amazing how quickly the children learned the sounds and recognized them and could sound them out and blend words before kindergarten.

Strongly Agree

I did not know the difference between Formative and Summative Assessment. This session helped me to understand the difference and how to correlate both into our teaching methods!

Strongly Agree

I finally got the clarity I needed between formative and summative assessments. Jill's explanation that formative is active and summative is a summary of the action.

Agree It was a good conversation to see where we are currently in 3s and PK with pre-reading. Allowed us to see places to improve.

Agree It is time to refresh these two areas at Trinity School!! Strongly Agree

There is always room to continue to learn .I enjoyed the class. looking forward to having more.

Strongly Agree

I learned the meaning of some new words!

Strongly Agree

Vocabulary clarification was very clear and helps make assessments actionable for the benefit of the child

Strongly Agree

Reading curriculum is of great interest to me and it has been some time since it has come under review at Trinity.

Agree I believe this is an important topic for us all to be on the same page about and have the same language.

Strongly Agree

It got me thinking about assessment, and confirmed that CAFE is a great way to teach and assess reading! I loved seeing all the ways we use reading.

Strongly Agree

I liked the format of today's session. Having a whole group explanation of both areas was helpful for a lot of people. Jill-- you did a great job of explaining assessment! Lots of examples were really helpful to everyone. I liked the feed up, feed back, feed forward explanation. Maryellen-- your presentation was so inspiring! It's wonderful to think of all of the ways we touch our children through reading.

Agree I like thinking about what we do and what we can do differently or better. Agree I'm sure that listing our methods of assessment is the start of a bigger project. Agree Agree It's nice to have a chance to collaborate with other teachers and learn their opinions

on reading and assessment. Strongly Agree

It was great to discuss the idea behind learning/assessment, especially considering the "whole child" with my team. Sometimes I feel a little isolated!

Agree It was great to come together as a community to have open dialog about reading and assessment.

Strongly Agree

It is helpful to talk to teammates about our current practices and to reflect on what works.

Agree It was beneficial to reflect as a team on how we use formative and summative assessments in our classrooms.

Neutral Interesting to compare and contrast different forms of formative and summative learning between art, PE, science, etc.

Agree Assessment is a very important topic, especially since we are looking to change and improve the progress reports at Trinity. Reading is also important because the teaching and learning of reading are constantly evolving and we can learn so much from each other.

Agree Agree We need to revisit our assessments on a regular basis to ensure that they are

effective in helping to diagnose problems so that remediation can be planned. Agree It's nice to reinforce what we're doing, and to brainstorm new ideas. I also liked

peeking at what other areas are doing with assessment. Strongly Agree

I think this is a conversation that happens in small scale, I like that we are talking about it as a school.

Strongly Agree

Love hearing discussion among grade levels about assessment and reading .

Agree It was helpful brainstorming with my team to be clear on how all K classrooms are using formative and summative assessments. We definitely need a session on the definitions of each!

Agree This session gave me more information about the specific assessments used in first grade at Trinity (e.g. PAST test) and allowed me to chat with my colleagues a bit more regarding their knowledge on assessment.

Agree Loved both presentations. Wished there was more time to hear from all. Looking forward to continuing the conversation in vertical teams and as a group.

Agree It was a good discussion-got me thinking. Agree As I try to incorporate more formative assessment in my class, it's good to

brainstorm with others for ideas. Often times, we forget how many assessments we already do!

Agree Do think we need to look at reading curriculum. Vertical coordination, do we need a more formal structure

Strongly Agree

It gave us an opportunity to speak as teammates and coworkers about a subject.

Agree It is beneficial to hear about what other grades are doing and get ideas of where we the reading curriculum can go.

Agree Do think we need to look at reading curriculum. Vertical coordination, do we need a more formal structure

Agree It was extremely beneficial to talk with other Specials teachers about the ways they assess their students. It's difficult to find meaningful ways to assess students when I only see them once or twice a rotation.

Agree I anticipate our work being used in a way that helps our community better align our reading practices and our in house assessments.

Strongly Agree

We have to begin this conversation as a community in order to define where we need to go. This meeting clearly indicated that there is a wide range of ideas, definitions and goals that need to be placed within a unified structure for the whole school, whole child concept.

Neutral I understand this is important, however, I find that I wish I could spend this time looking at assessment for my specific subject.

Strongly Agree

I loved the 'Reading' Discussion. It was beneficial hearing concerns/comments from all different grade levels. I hope that we can talk about these concerns/comments in length in smaller groups at a later time.

Neutral I felt like it started the conversation of writing a reading curriculum. Agree I suppose it was a good way to get people to start thinking about reading and

assessment at Trinity. Agree like talking about assessment because it is super important! Agree Always good to evaluate our own assessment methods and make modifications

and adjustments. Agree It was beneficial because it helped me to understand what we are going to be

working on in these reading workshops. I was unclear before this meeting. Agree Reading and assessments are essential ,and I a glad we will be working on these

topics. Neutral I wish that we had started the meeting immediately in our groups so we could dig

right into what we do in our classrooms for reading, what we want to do in our classrooms for reading, and what we need to do.

Agree This was nice to discuss but it was a bit redundant only because we just talked about it in our FSLT meeting. However, it was still nice to hear what others are doing.

Agree I liked Maryellen's presentation about all the different types of reading and why certain formats may be difficult to read/decode/interpret.

Agree Hearing different testimonials from different grade levels, as well as an open forum for faculty to discuss vertical coordination.

Neutral I don't have the sense that we got very far. I feel like we're still in the "figure out where we're going" mode.

Agree It was interesting hearing all the ways that people teach reading. I would love to

hear more about the Cafe method and how it can be incorporated in 6th grade. Agree It was interesting to hear what Trinity thinks we should focus on. It was frustrating

to not have a clear picture of the objectives of the meeting. Agree Agree I like hearing about what Trinity is currently doing/not doing and where we want to

go. I really liked hearing from each grade what they are doing in terms of reading/letters/big picture.

Strongly Agree

Reading and assessment are used by all at every grade level, subject, by all teachers and students.

Agree I enjoyed talking about how we assess our students because it reminded me of what we are already doing really well. I wanted to do more applicable work.

Agree I attended the Reading workshop of this meeting when we broke into groups. It was beneficial to hear from everyone (including specials) what is happening now in terms of reading. I think that we need to meet in groups with multiple grade levels more often to understand where our kids are coming from and where they need to be going.

Strongly Agree

It was great to get an overview of assessment and reading. It was great to hear what each grade is doing in reader's workshop and how reading builds from one grade level to the next.

Agree It got us thinking about assessment - how we might use it and what we can do to improve our assessment practices.

Strongly Agree

I thought it was interesting to hear each grade's perspective on reading and the activities they do to encourage it in the classroom. I am eager to observe a classroom that is participating in "The Cafe" and "Daily 5" to find out more about that as it pertains to their journey to Sixth Grade.

Agree I think it was, but I also think that the FSLT group made a document to show what we all do for reading. We should have all looked at the document, instead of talking about everything again.

Agree It's interesting to hear the viewpoints of my colleagues. I found out that we all do many of the same things. I think we spent a lot of time discussing/debating formative vs. summative assessment in order to put our thoughts and ideas in the correct box on the form.

Neutral I'm waiting to see what comes next. Agree I wonder if talking in small groups about reading rather than the whole group would

have been more effective? I also wonder if providing options for professional development in reading/establishing specific teams would have been beneficial i.e.-Orton Gillingham study, Curriculum study (maybe a few groups studying current curriculum, others studying successful curriculums in other schools), effective reading instruction (look at current research articles as a group)?

Strongly Agree

It was great to all get together in the beginning of the session to gain different perspectives on both assessment and reading. It was helpful to divide into two groups to gain information on what other grade levels are doing in terms of reading.

Agree I think it was the start of important work. Sharing where we are with reading instruction and what we want to see will help create an agenda for future meetings.

Strongly Agree

As a community is important for us to have common goals for reading.

Agree It's really good for teachers to reflect on what their doing, where it falls in terms of assessment, whether or not its impacting teaching and learning, how it changes instruction.

Agree It's time to re-work the reading curriculum and make sure that it is spiraling and that no gaps are being created.

Agree It was helpful to meet as a group and see collaboratively where we are as a department and as a school with assessment. It was also helpful in explaining and defining formative and summative assessment.

Agree Need everybody informed about where we are going and an opportunity to give input.

Agree We are in the midst of developing our class assessment form. Strongly Agree

We are developing our assessments at present.

Strongly Agree

The LT needs for the classroom teachers to understand how we use on going assessments and how we support there instruction and they support what we do. Many of our children need to have some things taught in whole group, small group, one-on -one. Hands on, visually -----all modalities.

   

 2a. The content of this session can be applied to my work.

2b. Why or why not? Strongly Agree

Agree Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

It makes my assessing much clearer so that I can better serve my students and their needs.

Agree Not sure where we are going with this but I like the discussion. Strongly Agree

Assessment applies to each and every day of teaching-especially the daily formative assessment we implement daily

Strongly Agree

I can take what I learned about formative assessment back to my room. I need to take the time to provide feedback to my students in the moment.

Strongly Agree

Hmmmm.... Media..... How can this be applied? Reading is what we are all about and we want to support the classroom teachers in any way we can.

Strongly Agree

i will hope to use more formative assessment

Strongly Agree

Agree begin consistently reading everyday Strongly Agree

Knowing what has been done in past and what we are wanting to do helps to know how to assist in the classroom.

Strongly Agree

I can correlate both Formative and Summative Assessments with our students and not just one or the other.

Strongly Agree

We use is daily and gets us to think about what we are actually doing when we teach and why we do what we do.

Agree I can use the different methods to enhance pre-reading skills that were shared by colleagues.

Strongly Agree

It is always a good idea to re evaluate our area of reading and assessment and this focus will have us add extra focus on these classroom topics.

Agree Agree Discussions about reading are always beneficial, making me think!?!? Strongly Agree

It helps me see my role as a facilitator of the child's learning process, and progress.

Agree This was a good starting point on both topics and based on discussions with small groups it will be very helpful going forward.

Neutral Eventually it will, today we laid the groundwork, so this content can not yet be applied.

Strongly Agree

Reading and assessment are huge parts of my day. I feel I am always informally assessing my students and trying to figure out what's next.

Strongly Agree

I think everyone will be more aware of how we assess and as we do this each day.

Strongly Agree

Neutral At this point, we listed things we are already doing. Strongly Agree

Agree You can come up with new ideas for both formative and summative assessments. Strongly Agree

Because I assess!

Strongly Agree

We need a reading curriculum and time to create this curriculum.

Strongly Agree

I would love to see us focus as a team on how to make assessment match our instruction and occur in a timely manner.

Strongly Agree

Neutral Just summarizing what we already do in art. No new information given or suggesting. Agree I look forward to seeing how our reading instruction and collaboration continues to

grow, in each grade level as well as vertically. I do hope we continue to discuss progress reports and how those are tied into all types of assessments, formative and summative.

Agree Agree Agree We need to get to know our students on a deeper level. A larger variety of

summative assessment will be huge. Strongly Agree

Absolutely! I can't wait to continue the conversation and share out. I often wonder about how this looks linear-ly :) from 3s up to Sixth.

Strongly Agree

Better teaching of reading is a focus of mine.

Agree I now know that the K classrooms are somewhat on the same page and I am on the right track.

Agree Strongly Agree

Agree I would like more practical application practice and/or instruction. Strongly Agree

Agree Strongly Agree

It lets our teammates know where we are assessing formatively and summatively.

Neutral I think that this first meeting was more about hearing about what other grades are

doing and where we want to go with reading curriculum, but in future meetings we can learn ideas that can be used in our work.

Agree Agree Assessment in Specials classes is different than assessment in the base classroom.

Sometimes I struggle with the "how" of assessment in more formal ways since I only see my students once or twice a rotation. I want to continue to work at finding ways to formatively and summatively assess all of my students, across grade levels...in meaningful ways.

Agree With using the new Cafe reading program, I am eager to strengthen my current knowledge as well as to learn new ways of using formative assessments to guide my instruction.

Strongly Agree

I spend my days teaching reading solely.

Neutral It is good to hear what is being taught in classrooms and other specials. I can then reinforce what they are learning in the classroom in the art room. I just feel that what i do is so visual even though they do read in the art room....

Strongly Agree

Disagree I do not teach reading. Disagree We didn't do anything that I could walk away with and apply to my daily instruction. It

did get me thinking though about our reading process. Agree assessment is important Strongly Agree

Knowing the difference between assessment for learning vs assessment of learning.

Strongly Agree

Reading is used everyday and everywhere at school.

Strongly Agree

Neutral see above Agree Because we teach reading every day and we are working collaboratively with others Agree It reminds me to be more empathetic to kids' different reading backgrounds and

comprehension levels. Strongly Agree

Pre-reading skills in Spanish as well as maximum exposure to the target language help in the understanding of English

Neutral I've yet to see where this connects to my daily life in the classroom, but I have faith. Strongly Agree

With 6th grade being the last stop at Trinity, I would love to know what knowledge my students are coming to me with. I am anxious to see where the planning goes.

Disagree I don't feel like I "learned" anything new today, so applying it to my work doesn't seem to be applicable at this time. However, I do anticipate learning things as these meetings continue and being able to apply that to my work.

Agree We do formative assessment, but could do more, or more intentionally. Agree As I help with assessments, I can remember what Trinity's overall reading goals are. Strongly Agree

See 2A

Strongly Agree

Loved the language Jill used to talk to kids about expectations and moving forward.

Strongly Agree

When we were asked where we would like to see this going, there was a lot of talk of vertical coordination and the importance of common vocabulary.

Strongly Agree

We incorporate reading in everything that we do. Every Kindergartner that walks through the door wants to be able to read (as Maryellen) mentioned.

Strongly Agree

Assessment is vital to our success as teachers and to our students' success in learning; this session directly applies to what we need to be doing in our classrooms.

Strongly With each grade learning reading in the same way (Cafe), I am interested in learning

Agree how that attributes to where they are when they get to Sixth grade. I know each child is on a different level.

Agree I am excited to revisit our reading curriculum and make changes. I would like to begin.

Strongly Agree

It is my "work" to teach. Assessment is a part of the teaching and learning process.

Neutral Maybe, I'm wondering if we'll improve and unify what we're doing. Neutral I thought it was helpful to discuss different assessment options with other grade

levels, reading instruction generally across grade levels, but I think it could have been helpful to incorporate some reading about reading, some study, possibly some kind of writing about reading and the possible article.

Strongly Agree

We will be able to look over our current reading curriculum to see what is still important and may pertain to best educational practices. We will also look for new ways to implement reading strategies in our classrooms and develop an updated curriculum.

Agree It was beneficial to think about formative assessment. We are constantly using formative assessment to inform our instruction. Even running records in reading should be used as formative assessments. We are able to see where children are and where they need to go.

Strongly Agree

The discussion was beneficial. I was happy to hear and get a sense of what the other grade levels were doing.

Agree I don't officially assess for myself, but I aid in assessing for classroom teachers. Agree In order to help children make wise book selection choices we need to know how

they are understanding book choice in their classroom Agree It provided a good visual reminder of all the different assessment tools that we can

use. Strongly Agree

Agree Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

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3b. Please tell us anything else you want us to know. Kudos. I very much enjoyed it. I will use video to asses and think it will work well. I want to learn more about teaching foundation of reading I would be excited to sit in any meetings about this and assist with moving forward as to what our end goal is.

How can we use it more with Pre-K students? Jill presents tough concepts clearly and succinctly, and models "how to" in the process. I would like to follow up on a session on how to best serve those students who are reading in Pre-K with comprehension. I'm so glad we are discussing reading and assessment! As always, not enough time! :) Both ALT PPTs were excellent overviews of the importance of each strand of work. Thanks! What more can we do about formative and summative assessment and how will this apply to our new form of progress reports. Good start! Thank you for your time. How will this information be used and shared with us? I would like to have a session concerning progress report writing. This was delayed from pre-planning due to the power outage. I would like to see this session happen sooner than later please! I would like to see how what I use in the art room in the choice-art studios can be streamlined or be more appropriate to support their reading, comprehension, and ability to think creatively in the choice-art studio. I'm glad we will be writing a new reading curriculum! Thanks! I want to spend some time hearing what other grade levels do. I liked the idea of small groups within Trinity to follow-up with. I love having similar verbiage for instruction and assessment. n/a Meet in vertical teams. Learn more about the CAFE reading method. I would like for this session to happen again, but with my grade level now. Let's talk with the grade level and the levels above and below us if we make changes. I continue to be concerned about the way we teach reading, we seem to have a rather "willy nilly" approach currently and I think we need to seriously consider more structure and guidance for our teachers. I enjoyed today's presentations and discussion among my colleagues. I would like to add to the "What do we want to see..." - Vertical conversations about genre studies or units of study in reading. What are we teaching and in what grades. Fiction and nonfiction, but what about historical fiction and realistic fiction? - I would like to have a conversation about academic language - teaching important academic vocabulary. Reading and teaching reading to young children can be very difficult. Having on going conversation about this will definitely help my confidence and give me the resources to better help my students. We need to work hard to make those specialists who are in reading a part of what we do. Extending this conversation with interaction between teachers