Search results for ""Author Susan M. Brookhart""

In How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart helps teachers and administrators understand the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district.Readers will learn: What different kinds of data can—and cannot—tell us about student learning. What different analyses reveal about changes in student achievement. How to interpret, use, and share relevant data. How to create a model to go from problem to solution in a data-based decision-making process. With easy-to-understand explanations, supplemented by examples and scenarios from actual schools, this book offers a path to better understanding, more accurate interpretation of assessment results, and—most important—more effective use of data to improve teaching and learning.

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With new standards emphasizing higher-order thinking skills, students will have to demonstrate their ability to do far more than simply remember facts and procedures. But what's the best way for teachers to ensure that students have such skills? In this highly accessible guide, author Susan M. Brookhart shows how to do just that, by providing specific guidelines for designing targeted questions and tasks that align with standards and assess students' ability to think at higher levels. Aided by dozens of examples across grade levels and subject areas, readers will learn how to: Take a student perspective and view assessment questions and tasks as ""problems to solve."" Design multiple-choice questions that require higher-order thinking. Understand the difference between ""open"" and ""closed"" questions and how to use open questions effectively. Vary and control the features of performance assessment tasks, including cognitive level and difficulty, to target different thinking skills. Manage the assessment of higher-order thinking within the larger context of teaching and learning. Brookhart also provides an ""idea bank"" that teachers can use to jump-start their own thinking as they create assessments.Timely and practical, How to Design Questions and Tasks to Assess Student Thinking is essential reading for 21st century teachers who want their students to excel in the classroom and beyond.

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Properly crafted and individually tailored feedback on student work boosts student achievement across subjects and grades. In this updated and expanded second edition of her best-selling book, Susan M. Brookhart offers enhanced guidance and three lenses for considering the effectiveness of feedback: (1) does it conform to the research, (2) does it offer an episode of learning for the student and teacher, and (3) does the student use the feedback to extend learning? In this comprehensive guide for teachers at all levels, you will find information on every aspect of feedback, including: Strategies to uplift and encourage students to persevere in their work. How to formulate and deliver feedback that both assesses learning and extends instruction. When and how to use oral, written, and visual as well as individual, group, or whole-class feedback. A concise and updated overview of the research findings on feedback and how they apply to today's classrooms. In addition, the book is replete with examples of good and bad feedback as well as rubrics that you can use to construct feedback tailored to different learners, including successful students, struggling students, and English language learners.The vast majority of students will respond positively to feedback that shows you care about them and their learning. Whether you teach young students or teens, this book is an invaluable resource for guaranteeing that the feedback you give students is engaging, informative, and, above all, effective.

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The only assessment book K–12 teachers need to monitor and maximize student learning.Classroom assessment is a vital part of teaching. It helps make student learning—or a lack thereof—visible so that teachers can adjust teaching practices and better support learners. But designing and implementing reliable assessments is a complex process.In this comprehensive book by assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart, you will learn the foundational concepts and practical skills necessary to be successful with classroom assessment. Organized into 21 essentials, the book addresses everything from using pre-assessment before starting new lessons to communicating with parents about their child's academic growth. Along the way, you will discover how to Create clear learning targets and success criteria based on standards. Provide meaningful feedback to students about progress toward goals. Involve students in the regulation of their own learning. Use homework to check for understanding. Decide on instructional follow-up based on formative assessment data. Make accommodations for students with IEPs and support equity and fairness. Design performance tasks for individuals and groups. Craft rubrics and design classroom tests.With strategies that support high-quality assessment, tips and troubleshooting advice, and examples across subject areas and grade levels, Classroom Assessment Essentials will help you make effective assessment a cornerstone of your classroom.

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Revolutionize the walkthrough to focus on the endgame of teaching: student learning. Authors Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart present the proven practice of formative walkthroughs that ask and answer questions that are specific to what the student is learning and doing.Learn the value of having the observer examine the lesson from the student's point of view and seek evidence of seven key learning components: A worthwhile lesson. A learning target. A performance of understanding. Look-fors, or success criteria. Formative feedback. Student self-assessment. Effective questioning. Drawing upon their research and extensive work with K-12 teachers and administrators, Moss and Brookhart delve into the learning target theory of action that debuted in Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today's Lesson and show you how to develop a schoolwide collaborative culture that enhances the learning of teachers, administrators, coaches, and students. They present detailed examples of how formative walkthroughs work across grade levels and subject areas, and provide useful templates that administrators and coaches can use to get started now.Grounded in the beliefs that schools improve when educators improve and that the best evidence of improvement comes from what we see students doing to learn in every lesson, every day, Formative Classroom Walkthroughs offers a path to improvement that makes sense and makes a difference.

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Are you picking up all your students' work is trying to tell you? In this book, assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart and instructional coach Alice Oakley walk teachers through a better and more illuminating way to approach student work across grade levels and content areas. You'll learn to view students' assignments not as a verdict on right or wrong but as a window into what students "got" and how they are thinking about it. The insight you'll gain will help you* Infer what students are thinking,* Provide effective feedback,* Decide on next instructional moves, and* Grow as a professional.Brookhart and Oakley then guide teachers through the next steps: clarify learning goals, increase the quality of classroom assessments, deepen your content and pedagogical knowledge, study student work with colleagues, and involve students in the formative learning cycle. The book's many authentic examples of student work and teacher insights, coaching tips, and reflection questions will help readers move from looking at student work for correctness to looking at student work as evidence of student thinking.

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In Learning Targets, Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart contend that improving student learning and achievement happens in the immediacy of an individual lesson--what they call ""today's lesson""—or it doesn't happen at all.The key to making today's lesson meaningful? Learning targets. Written from students' point of view, a learning target describes a lesson-sized chunk of information and skills that students will come to know deeply. Each lesson's learning target connects to the next lesson's target, enabling students to master a coherent series of challenges that ultimately lead to important curricular standards.Drawing from the authors' extensive research and professional learning partnerships with classrooms, schools, and school districts, this practical book: Situates learning targets in a theory of action that students, teachers, principals, and central-office administrators can use to unify their efforts to raise student achievement and create a culture of evidence-based, results-oriented practice. Provides strategies for designing learning targets that promote higher-order thinking and foster student goal setting, self-assessment, and self-regulation. Explains how to design a strong performance of understanding, an activity that produces evidence of students' progress toward the learning target. Shows how to use learning targets to guide summative assessment and grading. Learning Targets also includes reproducible planning forms, a classroom walk-through guide, a lesson-planning process guide, and guides to teacher and student self-assessment.What students are actually doing during today's lesson is both the source of and the yardstick for school improvement efforts. By applying the insights in this book to your own work, you can improve your teaching expertise and dramatically empower all students as stakeholders in their own learning.

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Grading is one of the most hotly debated topics in education, and grading practices themselves are largely based on tradition, instinct, or personal history or philosophy. But to be effective, grading policies and practices must be based on trustworthy research evidence.Enter this book: a review of 100-plus years of grading research that presents the broadest and most comprehensive summary of research on grading and reporting available to date, with clear takeaways for learning and teaching. Edited by Thomas R. Guskey and Susan M. Brookhart, this indispensable guide features thoughtful, thorough dives into the research from a distinguished team of scholars, geared to a broad range of stakeholders, including teachers, school leaders, policymakers, and researchers. Each chapter addresses a different area of grading research and describes how the major findings in that area might be leveraged to improve grading policy and practice. Ultimately, Guskey and Brookhart identify four themes emerging from the research that can guide these efforts: Start with clear learning goals. Focus on the feedback function of grades. Limit the number of grade categories. Provide multiple grades that reflect product, process, and progress criteria. By distilling the vast body of research evidence into meaningful, actionable findings and strategies, this book is the jump-start all stakeholders need to build a better understanding of what works—and where to go from here.

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Assessment literacy leads to improved outcomes for all Do you know how to ensure teachers have the knowledge and skill to use assessment data to improve student learning? Do you know the influence that student involvement in assessments has on motivation and learning? This book guides you and your leadership team through 10 assessment literacy goals with practical content, how-to’s, success indicators, and activities to extend and process learning. You will come away understanding the attributes of comprehensive and balanced assessment systems, the necessity for clear academic achievement targets, and why assessment quality is essential. In addition to providing rubrics, processes, and practical tools that work across all grade levels and subject areas, this book shows you how to: Work with staff to integrate formative assessment and sound grading practices Communicate with all members of the school community about student learning Protect students and teachers by avoiding unethical and inappropriate assessment use Use student assessment information to improve and inform instruction Develop assessment policies that support quality assessment practice Advance your understanding of assessment so your teachers can accurately measure learning, practice effective formative assessment strategies, and ensure and maintain a comprehensive and balanced assessment system in your school or district.

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