Assess Group

In this video I discuss the topic of formative assessment or as I now refer to it as, "formative evaluation." I am a Ph.D. candidate with Michigan State University in the field of educational psychology.

"Disagreements between unions and politicians on how best to assess teachers are not as significant as the amount of agreement." "Where a great deal of consensus lies is around the ideas of a woman named Charlotte Danielson, who 16 years ago created a method for evaluating teachers that judges them according to four domains, each with numerous categories and subcategories: the quality of questions and discussion techniques; a knowledge of students’ special needs; the expectations set for learning and achievement; and the teacher’s involvement in professional development activities. The section for assessing the strength of the classroom-learning environment has 15 criteria — down to the placement of furniture. Ms. Danielson’s program, which also trains principals in how to properly execute the evaluations, is already being used in several states and on a pilot basis in 140 New York City schools (though in the experimental phase the outcomes will have no consequence). In November, a study out of the University of Chicago that looked at Ms. Danielson’s method as it was practiced in Chicago schools determined that it was not only a considerable improvement over an old evaluation system but that, just as significant, it established a shared definition of what good teaching was. Ms. Danielson, who runs her own educational consulting firm in Princeton, N.J., is perfectly suited to appeal to potentially opposing sides in the debates about education reform. As an Oxford-trained economist, she thinks both entrepreneurially and progressively. In the late 1960s she gave up research stints at the Council of Economic Advisers and the Brookings Institution to work as a teacher in Washington’s ailing public school system. 'If all you do is judge teachers by test results,' she told me when I visited her this week, 'it doesn’t tell you what you should do differently.'"

Today's post, however, is not about defining these taxonomies ( you can check the links above to read more about them ) but rather about the application of this taxonomy in real life. Watch the following funny clip to learn more about how HOTS ( Higher Order Thinking Skills ) have been used in a seemingly day-today- talk. The video is just 13 minutes but is really worth watching.