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Re-forming Summative Assessments

Re-forming Summative Assessments: Blurring the line between learning and testing

What if we could make that timeless question ‘Will this be on the test’ irrelevant? In today’s mainstream educational system we clearly differentiate between assessment and learning. Even when it comes to assessment meant to inform learning (formative assessment) we tend to distinguish between learning and showing that we learned new content and skills. What if we could bring the two much closer… so close that you can’t distinguish one from the other? In this show we will explore research and development efforts and products that move us closer to this seamless learning environment. We will examine what impact this has on products in development today and how this might change the way you think about your offering in the future.

We will explore the following questions:

  • What does a learning environment look like where learning and assessment are seamlessly integrated?
  • What are the benefits and issues with this approach?
  • Does this require technology or are there strategies that transcend the use of technology?
  • How does this integration fit in a world of high stakes assessment?
  • How can a content developer take advantage of this strategy to improve their existing and new products?

Guests at the table:

  1. Elizabeth Greninger, Ph.D.,  Managing Associate and Teacher Quality Specialist at edCount, LLC
  2. Stuart Kahl, Founding Principal and former CEO of Measured Progress
  3. Shawn Morgan, District Data Coordinator at CNY Regional Information Center

Moving from STEM to STEAM

Where Art Thou?:
Moving from STEM to STEAM

Ed Table Talk will be broadcasting LIVE Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

STEM is all the rage and rightly so. The skills our children need to learn regardless of their profession incorporate the skills that are taught in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes. With the emphasis on these studies one has to wonder what has become of a well-rounded liberal arts education. Schools in many cases have squeezed out fine and performing arts in order to make time for all STEM requirements. In the last five years however, many have come to understand, that arts incorporate complimentary processes to those addressed in STEM curricula. Things have started to heat up in moving from STEM to add the arts and move to STEAM. 

In this show, we will explore how the arts are integrated into a STEM centered curriculum and provide a vision of how arts can be better integrated to provide learning opportunities for all students. 

Join Host Michael Jay and ETT Guests ponder the following:

  1. What are some examples of the process of moving from STEM to STEAM?
  2. What benefits and trade offs are made in the process of incorporating arts into a STEM curriculum?
  3. How prepared are educators to engage learners in learning activities that incorporate the arts?
  4. What can publishers and curriculum developers do to incorporate more STEM into their arts curricula and/or more arts into their STEM curricula?

Guests at the table:

1. Michelle Cheng – Professional Development Manager at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

2. Bob Barboza – Founder & CEO of Super School K12 International University

3. Daniel Barstow – Senior Science Educator at TERC


Education Research to Guide Product Development

More Than Just A Good Idea:
Education Research to Guide Product Development

Ed Table Talk will be broadcased Tuesday, November 18th, 2014

Ideas abound for new teaching methodologies, and curriculum, and each claims to
be innovative and effective. Governments throughout the world fund a wealth of
research into educational strategies and instructional design every year, yet we find
that these communities often don’t communicate well with each other. It is not
unusual for popular educational solutions to lack research into their effectiveness
and how best they can be applied. Equally unusual, many educational research
programs, in which curriculum is developed, never see the commercial light of day,
or broad distribution.

We will examine what educational research brings to improving products today and
in the future and how publishers can take advantage of research findings to improve
their offerings.

Host Michael Jay and our leading education thinkers will contemplate the following:

  1. How closely tied is today’s research programs to educational practice?
  2. Where are there challenges for the research community in working with commercial vendors?
  3. How are requirements at funding agencies changing to bring these communities closer together?
  4. How are our universities and research institutions working to accommodate the commercialization of products from their research?
  5. How can publishers reach out to the research community to improve their offerings and gain greater credibility with the educational community?

Guests at the table:

1. Jeremy Roschelle– Director, Center for Technology in Learning, SRI International

2. Chad Dorsey– President and CEO, Concord Consortium 

3. Tammy Sumner – Executive Director, Digital Learning Sciences


On the Make

WATCH: On the Make: Moving to Active Learning through Design and Creation

Ed Table Talk broadcasted from Follett’s New Worldwide Headquarters!

8:00am PT/11:00am ET Tues. Sept. 16th.

Active learning is hard to leave in the classroom… if compelling, learners recount and rethink what they learned long after the lesson ends. The Maker movement embraces a “hands on, minds on” approach that links the tactile nature of learning with building and knowledge. This episode of Ed Table Talk explores the structure of the maker movement and asks the pivotal question: What is the importance of providing realistic context for students to apply their knowledge and become better learners?

The Maker movement has a long history in how we teach and students learn. The movement helps to change the perception about how best to teach students and how we prepare educators to manage a rich learning environment. Anybody who used pipe cleaners and Popsicle sticks was a member of the Maker movement, so why is it that we often forego this teaching strategy as students get older?

Research shows that kids who apply what they learn create more extensive knowledge that they can then apply in a variety of contexts outside of the classroom. This especially rings true for students who tend to be more visual learners. We will discuss ways that this strategy can be applied in your offerings and how it makes students better learners in their other academic pursuits — writing, math, science, social science, and the arts.

Host Michael Jay and guests discuss the popular Maker movement and its implications for preK-12 teaching and learning.

Guests at the table:

1. Jeff Branson, Educational Outreach at SparkFun

2. Sylvia Martinez, Author and Independent Education Consultant

3. Gary Stager, Publisher and CMFO at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press