What a great crowd for our first live show! After discussing their Georgia roots, Jacob and Kailey chat with their guests about choosing the best summer professional learning opportunities and what gets them motivated at a conference. Next, they turn to the new school year and discuss the biggest challenges ahead, including how to scale success across schools and districts.  Kailey also asks a few of her signature lightning-round, light-hearted questions.  Finally, stay tuned for the audience Q&A at the end of the show for your daily dose of teacher inspiration. There may have been some tears of joy in the room…

We assess our students every day. But do we always know why? In this e-book, Erin Beard, content design coordinator on NWEA’s professional learning team, tells you everything you need to know about assessment empowerment, from what it is to exactly how to bring it to life in your classroom.

New data shows progress toward academic recovery stalled in 2022-23. In this special briefing, Dr. Karyn Lewis provides more context and details to this new report on the state of academic gains and achievement levels.

This brief provides a policy perspective into the recent NWEA research on how COVID-19 has affected student learning. It builds on previous research showing achievement levels stalling over the 2022–23 school year from the previous year.

One hurdle for young students who are beginning to read is learning letter names, shapes, and sounds. To help students master these arbitrary pairings between letter shape and letter sound, using letter-embedded mnemonics has been found to be more effective than using letters on their own or letters accompanied by a picture. Try out this sample set of embedded mnemonics with your early learners!

This paper describes high quality teaching practices in two schools that produce exceptional growth for all kinds of students. These practices focus on making the most of instructional time and exposing students to high quality content in a variety of contexts. They prove teachers don’t need to choose between differentiating to meet students’ needs and giving them access to grade-level learning.

This brief is a response to Paul Zavitkovsky’s paper titled “Data Rich/Information Poor,” and includes NWEA’s high-level comments and concerns regarding Mr. Zavitkovsky’s claims. The brief highlights five areas that challenge the strength, validity, and quality of some of Mr. Zavitkosky’s “findings,” and as such, provide context for interpreting his results with caution and scrutiny.