TASC Standards: Personalized Learning For Diverse Learners

As a teacher-leader, I have been assigned a number of wide-ranging and important informal roles in my career thus far that have enabled me to support and contribute towards the success of not only my students, but also my department and my school as a whole. By assuming these diverse leadership roles, I have been able to develop professionally, improve student attainment, positively influence the teaching and learning practice of my peers and contribute towards the culture and ethos of the schools I have worked in.

I think it is important for administrators to be leaders that can look at many teaching and curriculum styles and ideas as wonderful diversities. One size does not fit all teachers or all students. Teachers need to be allowed to think outside of the box and try things that they feel will help their students. As a leader, the administrator can act as a catalyst for reflection and help guide teachers when change is needed. I want to be a leader that builds teachers up with support and encouragement while still holding them to high expectation of accountability.

Assessments are vital to the educational process. They provide feedback about what the students know and what they may need to learn in order to obtain the content within a given curriculum. It provides teachers with a glimpse into the student’s readiness on a particular topic or subject. One of the six key principles of having an effective differentiated classroom is having a formative assessment that informs teachers on the effectiveness of their teaching. It also provides teachers with the readiness levels of their students and shows them exactly where the students’ readiness, interests, and learning profile needs really are (Tomlinson, 2014).

“Tests today are not like the tests most parents took when they were in school. New forms of teaching students' work are already in use, and even more changes will be coming in the years ahead. The term "assessment" has come into common use to describe these new ways of measuring students' accomplishments.

Assessment needs to be an ongoing, integral part of the teaching and learning cycle. It must allow teachers and students themselves to monitor learning. From the teacher

Ch. 2 – Who are the various users of assessment and its results? What specific instructional decisions can be made based on assessment results? Why must we build balanced assessment systems to support the instructional programs we offer students? This chapter nails down the purpose of assessing, which is gathering information to inform teachers of students of their instruction and learning, respectively. In this way, assessment is individualized to each student and classroom, and because all students/classes are different, it should inform the teachers of what is working or not working in the classroom, which should then influence some sort of change to instruction. This chapter also talks about the different levels of assessment – from the individuals

As an educator, it is my job to find new ways for my students to learn that coincides with their particular learning style and takes advantage of their strengths. In all practical terms, this will mean finding new ways for each of my students to learn in their own particular way. As a whole, my students will need more reason to learn with authentic experiences, hands-on

After a long year of teaching the core curriculum standards, every year in the spring, students are to take a progress test to determine if they have learned the minimum required, to determine if their teacher had taught effectively. When I think about assessments, I think about State assessments, standardized test, Maps, and AYP. However not all assessments are test. There are many different types of assessments, for example, there are comprehensive, formative, summative, and performance assessments. Different types of assessments help guide students to do the very best work they are capable of doing.

To remediate this, we contracted with the Achievement Network to help us connect the standards to a curriculum and plan for a more fluid instructional delivery that would improve the assessment outcomes. They provided us a structure that laid out the Common Core Standards of assessed skills that included a scripted curriculum and instructional activities outlined in their guidelines. Students are making growth towards attainment. However, only 9% of the student population have met grade-level proficiency targets. Teachers are feeling that they are harshly judged because 30% of their evaluation is based on students meeting proficiency.

The article, Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners in FCS Classrooms, describes the changes in the ethnical make-up of today’s classroom and the challenges teachers face as they aim to teach children from different cultures. In addition, the article points out the different needs of multicultural learners in the classroom. Finally, the article also describes research based strategies and techniques teachers can use that prove to be effective for the diverse learner.

As a Middle School Language Arts teacher, I have found that assessments are a daily part of our job. Everything that my students do in the classroom ultimately ends up being assessed in some sort of way. I must admit that it can at times be overwhelming for assessments to be such a huge part of our curriculum; I understand the necessity of each one. I haven’t always been focused as intently on assessments. I really didn’t consider the importance of assessments as much. As I gained experience and knowledge I realized that assessing my students provides me with information that makes my job more successful. I believe to effectively teach my students, I must understand and implement the right assessments properly. My assessment philosophy is that to be able to ensure our students are learning and that we are teaching the right way we must include proper assessment for validation. With that being said it is very important to use different forms of assessments to gauge student performance. One of the outstanding features of studies of assessment in recent years has been the shift in the focus of attention, towards greater interest In the interactions between assessment and classroom learning and away from concentration on the properties of restricted forms of test which are only weakly linked to the learning experiences of students (Black 2015) This research supports the idea that assessments

After reading chapter 11 of our textbook, there were three important topics that stood out to me. The first topic that I thought was interesting was the purposes of assessments. According to Carjuzaa and Kellough, the purposes of assessments are for assisting student learning, identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, assess the effectiveness of a particular instruction strategy, assess and improve the effectiveness of curriculum programs, assess and improve teaching effectiveness, to provide data in order to communicate with parents and guardians and to involve them in their children’s learning, and to provide data that assist in decision making about a student’s future (Carjuzaa & Kellough, 2017, pg. 337-338). Assessing to identify strengths

Who are these diverse learners? They are the normal everyday students that are met in any high school. We have a tendency to teach assuming that most of our students are like us, however this is often not the case. As Hutchison (2002) discusses, Canadian school systems have long been challenged to teach in an inclusive manner and are looking for ways to help all of its students.

An assessment is when you gather evidence for feedback. It’s being keenly aware of what students know and understand and having appropriate evidence of this understanding. Assessments can be broken down into three different categories: Diagnostic, Formative, and Summative. Diagnostic assessment happens before learning. It’s when you identify the student’s knowledge and any misconceptions. This helps determine on what you need to review or where to begin your teaching. Formative assessment happens during the learning. It’s like a “coach”, where you listen and look for specifics. The goal is to improve students’ learning rather than simply measuring it. Summative assessment happens after the learning process. As a teacher, you’re like a judge, you render an opinion. It’s important to offer a grade that accurately reflects the students’ learning. These three types of assessments are used to determine how the student is learning, how to improve their learning, and accurately reflect their learning. The last term in our goal we need to understand is Standards Based Classroom. This is based on the mastery of the students’ learning and that all students are guaranteed the same right to learn the common curriculum. As teachers, we are responsible to deliver the material to expand the students’

Personalised learning advocates that educational systems must change from the traditional or industrial age of thinking one size fits all model. Personalised learning is a part of an educational system that surrounds the student as a learner rather than the student requiring to fit in with the system. This type of learning can be seen in a 21st century classroom, as the class using digital technology and using an app called Mathletics which has each students required level of mathematics which could range from low to high, each student works and learns at their own pace, this is in favour of the teacher stand in front of the class and teach, as students who don’t understand get lost very quickly. Using personalised learning in the classroom helps the teacher to recognise where each students level of comprehension is, each student has a personalised set task to complete. Diversity, equity and inclusion is often referred to as a particular group of learners whom educational success has been harder to achieve than that of other learners (Bolsted et al, 2012) However a 21st century learning