Redefining Fair: How to Plan, Assess, and Grade for Excellence in Mixed-Ability Classrooms

Learn how to define proficiency accurately and differentiate to help all students achieve it. With a focus on mixed-ability classes, the author outlines instructional practices that engage, empower, and motivate students. Using stories, strategies, case histories, and sample documents, he explains how to implement equitable instruction, assessment, grading, and reporting practices for diverse 21st century learners.

Benefits:

• Review examples of ways to respond to resistance to new assessment methods.
• Learn instructional practices that engage, empower, and motivate students.
• Discover how to collect data through a variety of preassessments and diagnostic assessments to determine students' needs, readiness to learn, and learning preferences.
• Examine guidelines to ensure report cards clearly convey essential information to parents and students.
• Gain an array of grading methods for mixed-ability classes and assessment and differentiation strategies that maximize learning for all students.
• Explore strategies to facilitate the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills students need to navigate the vast amounts of information they encounter in the digital world.

Contents:
Introduction: Why This Book Now?
Chapter 1: Why Is Differentiation Essential Today?
Chapter 2: What Does "Fair" Mean in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 3: How Should Curriculum and Assessment Connect in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 4: How Should I Assess Students' Needs in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 5: What Does Excellence Look Like in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 6: How Should I Assess Learning in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 7: How Should Assessment and Instruction Connect in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 8: How Should Assessment Be Matched to Students' Needs?
Chapter 9: How Do I Grade Learning in the Mixed-Ability Class?
Chapter 10: How Can I Report Effectively to Students in the Mixed-Ability Class and to Their Parents?

Damian Cooper is an independent consultant who specializes in helping educators in schools and school districts throughout the world improve their instructional and assessment skills. In his varied career, Damian has been a secondary English, special education, and drama teacher; a department head; a librarian; a school consultant; and a curriculum developer. He has specialized in student assessment for more than 20 years.

Damian served as assessment consultant to the School Division of Nelson Education, where he worked on the development of assessment principles and strategies for a wide variety of K-12 resources. He was also coordinator of assessment and evaluation for the Halton District School Board in Burlington, Ontario.

Damian is the author of Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Learning and Talk About Assessment: High School Strategies and Tools.