In this essential guide, Starr Sackstein—a National Board Certified Teacher—explains how teachers can use reflection to help students decipher their own learning needs and engage in deep, thought-provoking discourse about progress. She explains how to help students set actionable learning goals, teach students to reflect on and chart their learning progress, and use student reflections and self-assessment to develop targeted learning plans and determine student mastery. Filled with practical tips, innovative ideas, and sample reflections from real students, this book shows you how to incorporate self-assessment and reflection in ways that encourage students to grow into mindful, receptive learners, ready to explore a fast-changing world.

This book describes a method of teaching that fosters autonomous learning in all students, including students with disabilities. The pedagogy is based on decades of research on strategy instruction as well as on a theory of learning that claims these four conditions promote self-determined learning in all learners: (1) opportunities to choose expectations for gaining something from a learning challenge, (2) strategies that regulate responses to meet those expectations, (3) comparisons between results and expectations that provoke additional adjustment in expectations and responses, and (4) persistent engagement and adjustment until results match expectations. The pedagogy of self-instruction described in this book anchors these conditions in everyday instruction so students can learn by adjusting to their own expectations. Chapter 1 compares this approach to the teacher-directed methods of direct instruction that require teachers to set expectations for students, control how students respond to them, evaluate the outcomes they produce, and then prescribe adjustments students must make to improve. Chapter 2 provides evidence that too much of special education instruction reflects this teacher-directed approach and as a consequence discourages students from learning how to learn on their own. Chapters 3-6 identify four ways to shift learning control from teachers to students and Chapters 7 and 8 identify the obstacles to achieving this instructional shift in special education. The appendices of the book provide a bibliography of research on self-instruction and direct instruction pedagogies and a validated self-assessment that can evaluate the directedness of your teaching.

Using Self-Assessment to Improve Student Learning synthesizes research on self-assessment and translates it into actionable guidelines and principles for pre-service and in-service teachers and for school leaders, teacher educators, and researchers. Situated beyond the simple how-to frameworks currently available for teachers and graduate students, this volume illuminates self-assessment’s complexities and substantial promise to strategically move students toward self-regulated learning and internalized goals. Addressing theory, empirical evidence, and common implementation issues, the book’s developmental approach to quality self-assessment practices will help teachers, leaders, and scholars maximize their impact on student self-regulation and learning.

Students today are growing up in a digital world. These "digital natives" learn in new and different ways, so educators need new approaches to make learning both real and relevant for today's students. Marc Prensky, who first coined the terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants," presents an intuitive yet highly innovative and field-tested partnership model that promotes 21st-century student learning through technology. Partnership pedagogy is a framework in which: - Digitally literate students specialize in content finding, analysis, and presentation via multiple media - Teachers specialize in guiding student learning, providing questions and context, designing instruction, and assessing quality - Administrators support, organize, and facilitate the process schoolwide - Technology becomes a tool that students use for learning essential skills and "getting things done" With numerous strategies, how-to's, partnering tips, and examples, Teaching Digital Natives is a visionary yet practical book for preparing students to live and work in today's globalized and digitalized world.

This volume focuses on assessing students' abilities as self-directed learners. The authors use 'triangulation' to ensure that the assessment system is balanced and complete.

“When students know how to learn, they are able to become their own teachers.” —Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and John Hattie Imagine students who describe their learning in these terms: “I know where I’m going, I have the tools I need for the journey, and I monitor my own progress.” Now imagine the extraordinary difference this type of ownership makes in their progress over the course of a school year. This illuminating book shows how to make this scenario an everyday reality. With its foundation in principles introduced in the authors’ bestselling Visible Learning for Literacy, this resource delves more deeply into the critical component of self-assessment, revealing the most effective types of assessment and how each can motivate students to higher levels of achievement.

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Praise for How Learning Works "How Learning Works is the perfect title for this excellent book. Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." —Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching "This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." —Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education "Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." —Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching "As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." —From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning