As my fellowship comes to a close, I know that my externship will impact the learning and teaching of my students. I have learned so much about the assessment process while working at DPI. I’ve begun to create a training session on how to write and use constructed response questions in class. This will help me put what I’ve learned at DPI to use by creating more sound assessments in my own classroom.
We’ve spent a lot of time breaking down the essential standards and really studying the revised Bloom’s verbs that accompany them. I feel like the written, taught, and tested curriculum will be more aligned in my classroom than ever before. Because the new state standards are more conceptual, I will still have a lot of choice in my curriculum. Because of my new deep understanding of the standards and the assessments, my students will benefit tremendously by being better prepared for the end of year assessment, while not experiencing a narrowing of the curriculum that so often happens when we “teach to the test.”
I can’t wait to get the year started!
It’s great to hear that you plan use what you learned this summer with your students!