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Planning and Assessment

 

 

 

If you want to create a more unified, thematic approach to our curriculum that makes learning more meaningful for students, read on for ways to set goals, collect and organize resources, and create long- and short-term lesson plans that not only align with what your school district requires, but with what YOU know is best practice for your students.  You'll also find tips for creating a daily schedule, preparing students for standardized testing, managing small group instruction and centers, and planning appropriate homework systems, as well as efficient methods of grading papers. 

 

 

PDF Pages

     

 

 

Purposeful Planning*

 

 

 

The Daily Schedule

 

 

 

Grading Made Simple*

 

 

 

 

Standardized Testing*

 

 

 

 

Other On-Site Resources

 

Lesson Materials and Files

 

Cooperative Learning

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PDFs marked with an asterisk (*) cannot be printed, because they are adapted from The Cornerstone book.  If you'd like to view the complete text with all printing rights enabled, you may purchase the eBook.   PDFs that aren't marked with an asterisk are web-exclusive content or chapter overviews and CAN be printed for educational use.  Please note that the copy/paste function has been disabled on ALL PDFs to prevent unauthorized use.

 

Cornerstone Cross-Reference

 

   

 

Find even MORE info about planning in

The Cornerstone book!

Book-exclusive content includes:

 

 

 

Ch. 5: Finding and Filing Instructional Resources

 

*Specific guidelines for managing your lesson materials for each subject area


Ch. 19: Purposeful Planning

 

*Who determines what you're REALLY teaching? The answer (along with your responsibilities for addressing deficiencies in the system) may surprise you!

 

*4 planning basics ALL teachers should have

 

*Daily lesson plan options: how to streamline the time you spend preparing instruction

 

*How backwards planning and pacing guides can give your long-range plans a vision and direction


*Too many ideas, too little time: how to develop a repertoire of teaching strategies and a plan to implement them


*Easy and inexpensive ways to obtain and organize your ideas


*3 questions to ask yourself when reflecting and planning new strategies for the following school year: make a personal plan to improve your teaching with small, manageable goals



 

Ch. 20: Managing Small Group Instruction

 

*Organizing your area and materials: photos and tips for setting up your reading group location

 

*Deciding on the number of groups and materials for each (and what to do with the kids who don't fit in any group)

 

*Flexible reading groups: how to manage your routines while pulling only the kids who need to work on a particular skill

 

*How to select your small group components and create a workable rotation schedule even with limited time

 

*Is self-selected reading a waste of time? What the research says, and how you can apply it to self-selected reading procedures in your classroom

 

*Self-selected reading guidelines: what students should be doing and how to teach them your procedures, how to assess progress through reading conferences, using individual book boxes, keeping meaningful reading logs, and more!

 

 

Ch. 21: Rethinking Centers

 

*How centers can be used throughout the day: morning work, Fun Friday, during instructional time, and more!

 

*How mixed ability center groups can help kids stay on-task during centers and make the activities more meaningful

 

*Centerjobs: 5 pages of ideas to help you create specific self-paced center tasks that are quick and easy to create and assess

 

 

Ch. 22: Standardized Testing

 

*De-stressing ideas for test breaks: games and activities to help kids relax and re-focus

 

*Making test week the highlight of the year: a variety of ideas from website visitors on making testing special and fun

 

*The importance of choosing a school and district with responsible views towards testing: what successful schools have in common

 

 

Ch. 23: Eliminating Homework Hassles

 

*8 choices to make when creating your homework system: there are no right or wrong answers!

 

 

Ch. 24: Quick and Easy Assessment

 

*Rethinking paper and pencil work: alternative activities that will save you time and photocopies!  Includes an entire page of tips on managing individual dry erase boards

 

*Informal assessment methods: using benchmark students, relfection questions, a 3 Things poster, learning timeline, and exit tickets

 

*A simple way to tell and track: do they REALLY understand?

 

*Ways to involve students in the assessment process (each one involves less grading for you!)

 

*What not to grade: 3 questions to ask yourself when determining whether or not to grade an assignment

 

*What to do with work you don't grade (and why it's alright to--gasp--throw some papers away!)

 

 

 

 

 

Free Downloads Referenced in the Book

 

 

Blank long-range planning form

Homework: already listed

Homework: sectioned by day

Homework: sectioned by subject

Language arts block planner

Lesson plans: first week

Math assessment sheet

Missing work form 1 (large)

Missing work form 2 (new)

Missing work form 3 (original)

Planning pages blank

Planning pages

 

 

 

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Recommended Resources

Planning

Coming soon (well, as soon as I find some).

 

 

    

 

 

 

Assessment

 

Ditto.  Any recommendations?

 

 

Standardized Tests

 

There are some excellent test-taking tips here from the Teachers.Net Gazette.

 

Our School Family (a great resource for all sorts of teaching resources) includes a page called A Call To Action.  It is one of very, very few web pages devoted to helping teachers fight for educational policies that support the development of the whole child.  There's an impressive collection of quotes, suggested reads, and links to organizations that support educational reform.

 

The Cal Teacher Blogger has insightful observations on current and future realities in education from a high school/university-level teacher.  He makes a point to always end on a positive note, so you leave the site feeling as if someone understands the daily challenges of teaching but has encouraged you to stay the course.

 

The Florida Center For Assessment Reform (FCAR) is NOT just for those of us in the Sunshine State!  One of its primary missions is to dismantle the nation-wide No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act.  Visit the site for online petitions to sign and frequent updates on the organization's progress.

 

If we want education to be meaningful and effective, we have to understand where our kids are coming from, and Generation Why sums things up in a powerful way. The site is by a for-profit organization that sells most of it's materials, but has a few great resources available for free.  I particularly like this Quick Look at Generation Why--it's a short, amusing insight into what the younger generations value and understand...and what they don't. 

 

Here are some free printable motivational posters for staff and students from Adrian Bruce- he encourages you to hang them around your school to discourage teachers from overdosing on worksheets, complaining, and exercising prejudice.

 

 

Centers

 

Mandy Gregory has some awesome ideas for having kids spend their reading group time on meaningful reading tasks, and using centers for morning work.  I love the idea of having children unpack, sharpen pencils, and delve right into center activities- what a motivation for kids to be on time for school and to get started working! 

 

More center ideas, photos, management tips, and printables than you could ever use from Teaching Heart.

 

Excellent free printable centers for grades K-1 from FCRR, organized according to skill (fluency, vocab, comprehension, etc.).  Click HERE for grades 2-3.  These are superb!

 

One year, I based my  centers on Howard Gardener's Multiple Intelligences theory (the idea that  everyone is smart in a variety of ways, not just those traditionally valued by schools).  At the beginning of the year, I gave the kids a survey so they can be more aware of their learning style and strengths.  After completing the survey, they graphed their different strengths and wrote a paragraph explaining how they learn best.  When they began using centers, students practiced the same skills repeatedly, but in different ways depending on what center they were in.  For example, in a Bodily-Kinesthetic center, they might lay on the floor and do 3-D rubbings of their spelling words, while in a Logical Mathematical center, they may do a word join like the game Scrabble using their spelling words.   Within the center for each type of intelligence, there were several activity choices so students could never claim to be "done" with a center or complain they had already completed everything there.   Laura Candler's File Cabinet is a treasure chest of info on MI and many other topics:    MI Survey       MI lessons and directions     Ways people are smart sorting slips       Smart song    MI center labels from abc teach

  

From Teresa Wilson's page: Fabulous literacy file folder centers, ready to print!

 

Cherry Carl's incredible and extensive free literacy activities and centers (geared for grades K-2).

 

Meacham's Classroom Snapshots is a wonderful, easy-to-navigate resource with great printable literacy centers for the early grades.

 

Mandy Gregory's printable literacy centers are fabulous!

 

 

Reading Groups

The school district of Springfield, Illinois, provides excellent, easy-to-read information about teaching and managing guided reading.  There are PDF downloads to help you with the first ten days of grades 2-5, reading workshop, and more.

Mandy Gregory has tried out a lot of different guided reading management strategies and reflects honestly on what she believes is best practice and workable in her classroom.  Click here to view her 4th grade guided reading program.

 

          

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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