The true power of assessment comes when emerging results determine what comes next in student learning. This practical book empowers educators and their teams, schools, or districts to move seamlessly between instruction, formative assessment, and feedback, improving school culture more effectively than traditional methods. Instructional agility enhances ownership of learning, proficiency, and motivation for students, and promotes a positive school culture. Each chapter concludes with reflection questions that assist readers in determining next steps for supporting the whole child and the whole learning process.
Learn how to promote an agile culture of learning in school to increase student ownership of learning:
- Discover how instructional agility fits within the six tenets of the essential assessment framework.
- Learn how to foster and maintain a culture of learning in schools.
- Gain strategies and tools to enhance instructional agility and assessment practices.
- Examine examples of instructional agility in action.
- Consider questions that help individual teachers and learning teams contemplate what they learned and their next steps for implementing for instructional agility strategies.
Contents:
Chapter 1: Establishing a Culture of Learning
Chapter 2: Engineering Engaging Conversations
Chapter 3: Questioning
Chapter 4: Observing
Chapter 5: Mobilizing
Chapter 6: Practicing
Chapter 7: Fostering a Culture of Instructional Agility
References and Resources
Cassandra Erkens is a presenter, facilitator, coach, trainer of trainers, keynote speaker, author, and above all, a teacher. She presents nationally and internationally on assessment, instruction, school improvement, and professional learning communities.
Cassandra has served as an adjunct faculty member at Hamline and Cardinal Stritch universities, where she took teachers through graduate education courses. She has authored and coauthored a wide array of published trainings, and she has designed and delivered the training of trainers programs for two major education-based companies.
As an educator and recognized leader, Cassandra has served as a senior high school English teacher, a director of staff development at the district level, a regional school improvement facilitator, and a director of staff and organization development in the private sector.
Tom Schimmer is an author and a speaker with expertise in assessment, grading, leadership, and behavioral support. Tom is a former district-level leader, school administrator, and teacher. As a district-level leader, he was a member of the senior management team responsible for overseeing the efforts to support and build the instructional and assessment capacities of teachers and administrators.
Tom is a sought-after speaker who presents internationally for schools and districts. He has worked extensively throughout North America, as well as in Vietnam, Myanmar, China, Thailand, Japan, India, Qatar, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates. He earned a teaching degree from Boise State University and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of British Columbia.
Nicole Dimich Vagle has a passion for education and lifelong learning, which has led her to extensively explore, facilitate, and implement innovative practices in school transformation. She works with elementary and secondary educators in presentations, trainings, and consultations that address today's most critical issues, all in the spirit of facilitating increased student learning and confidence.
Nicole was a high school transformation specialist, where she coached individual teachers and teams of teachers in assessment, literacy, and high expectations for all students. She produced a training DVD that illustrates a protocol for examining the effectiveness of assessments and student learning. Nicole was also a program evaluator and trainer at the Princeton Center for Leadership Training in New Jersey. A former middle and high school English teacher, she is committed to making schools places where all students feel invested and successful.
A featured presenter at conferences throughout North America, Nicole empowers educators to build their capacity for and implement formative assessment practices, common assessment design and analysis, data-driven decisions, student work protocols, and motivational strategies.
Nicole earned a master of arts degree in human development from Saint Mary's University and a bachelor of arts degree in English and psychology from Concordia College.
