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NJPEP Home > Workshops > Classroom Assessment > Planning to teach

In the Classroom: Assessment for Instruction
Assessment Steps

2. Making a Plan to Teach
     What is the end-goal, and how do I get there, what could my plan look like?

Teachers work together to set grade-based standards-based benchmark assessments for the school and/or district!

See: Union City, NJ: A District Achieves Success.

Resource and/or Suggestion-
what it can tell you?

Where to find it -
what does it look like?

A. Setting up the year (or semester, or end-of-course) long standards-based goal post (a backwards-design model).
* This sets up the standards-based summative benchmark goal.

* The 3 Stages of Backward Design - based on Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe's Understanding by Design.
Assessment type: Summative (end of year), such as a statewide or end of class assessment.
Assessment informs: student, parent, next teacher.
B. Map your curriculum!
* Start the map by deciding on the standards-based end goal.
* Roadmap to Success: A Curriculum Mapping Primer - a helpful review.
* Curriculum Designers - Heidi Hayes Jacobs Web site.
* NCREL Curriculum Mapping Web Site - you can go in and try out curriculum mapping for free.
Below are more detailed suggestions for those who would like to explore further
C. Dividing the year into 3 or 4 sections & setting a standards-based assessment benchmark for each section based on #1 above.
* Each section benchmark sets intermediary goals, and supports assessment for instruction. 		* Benchmark resources: Exemplars. The Task Bank from North Dakota. Read how Exemplars are being used in Newark.
* Standards-based instruction from Chicago Public Schools.
Assessment type: Summative (end of quarter) assessment at end of each section.
Assessment informs: student, parent, teacher.
D. Dividing each section into 3 or 4 units or themes each with benchmark.
* Each unit benchmark informs if any needed modification of instruction.
* NOTE: should you collaborate with other teachers to provide enhanced support for certain teachers?
* Use the template modified from Texas, or a simple annual calendar to get started - see grade 12 language arts literacy and mathematics examples.
Assessment type: Formative assessment at end of each unit.
Assessment informs: student, parent, teacher.