Seven Practices for Effective Learning

In this week's post, we are sharing an article that was originally published in Educational Leadership in 2005.  It's an excellent article that describes many of the practices that are now common place at York Middle School.

With the release of our new reporting system, the collective conversation has shifted to the way we are grading students and how their new scores can be interpreted.  These conversations are important. Reporting on proficiency levels in disaggregated standards is radically different than using a composite grade based on an average.  There will be a learning curve and it will take time for all of us to adjust.

With all the conversation surrounding grades, I don't want to lose sight of the effective and powerful strategies that teachers are implementing at the classroom level.  This is where the real impact of Proficiency-Based Learning is felt.  When all is said and done, the end goal is to improve our instructional and assessment practices so that all students achieve to their potential.

This article details many of the practices that teachers must execute at high levels in order to be successful in a proficiency-based learning model.  These are some of the things we have been working on as we prepared for this transition.

We hope you enjoy the article.

Seven Practices for Effective Learning