9.5.23 College and career readiness should begin in fifth grade I often facilitate MAP® Growth™ professional learning workshops for high school teachers and administrators, and one of the most frequent complaints I hear is the lack of effort students put... Read more
8.31.23 5 ways English teachers can use ChatGPT in their classroom When we at NWEA released a document sharing our views on writing instruction last September, we were excited about the innovations happening with digital literacy. We even discussed a body of... Read more
8.29.23 COVID-19 school closures effects linger: How school leaders can help The latest NWEA research on the effects of COVID-19 school closures is in: progress toward academic recovery for older kids in particular has been slower than we’d like. Our researchers are... Read more
8.24.23 4 ways to use improv in your math classroom to engage kids Improvised comedy, or improv, for short, is the art of creating a scene from nothing but a suggestion, often with a scene partner or group. Great improv will leave audience members wondering if the... Read more
8.22.23 How inquiry-based learning can ignite the learner in all of us My son had a teacher in third grade who changed everything for him. Up to that point, recess was his favorite subject. Then he was introduced to inquiry-based learning that extended beyond the... Read more
8.17.23 How teachers can build professional relationships with each other—and themselves We need to put more relating back into relationships. More specifically, we need to invest in helping educators build meaningful professional relationships with each other and with... Read more
8.15.23 3 ways to improve students’ digital literacy skills Digital literacy is something we didn’t have to think much about a few decades ago. But as the amount of information available to us—from online newspapers and other websites to social media... Read more
8.10.23 Assessment security: Who—or what—are we really protecting? There are many misconceptions blocking innovation in state summative assessments. One is security. Existing policies related to assessment security may be doing more harm than good. An... Read more
8.8.23 6 back to school tasks for busy teachers Teachers, in the spirit of Greta Gerwig’s pink summer blockbuster, what kind of back to school Barbie are you? Summer School Barbie: This Barbie never really turns their school-brain off.... Read more
8.3.23 Computer adaptive assessment: A proven approach with limited uptake As my colleagues have discussed in earlier Teach. Learn. Grow. posts, there are common misconceptions holding state summative assessments back from innovating at scale. I’d like to look at the... Read more
8.1.23 3 key questions to measure instructional coaching effectiveness How do we know if instructional coaching is effective? This is a question that regularly comes up for educators when discussing the role and practice of instructional coaches. Ongoing... Read more
7.27.23 How MAP assessments can support multilingual instruction A multilingual education has countless benefits. According to the Office of English Language Acquisition, it may help improve cognitive flexibility, lead to more academic and professional... Read more