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NWEA: Advancing learning outcomes for all kids

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We empower educators and learners with evidence-based products and services that unlock opportunity.

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Responsive Lesson Plan: English Language Arts Example

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Responsive Lesson Plan: English Language Arts Example

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Available in the Professional Learning Online Community

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A full directory of tags used in MAP Skills. You can search tags to find matching content.

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Digital Tools and Apps for Formative Assessment Success

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Digital Tools and Apps for Formative Assessment Success

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There is no shortage of formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning. We didn't just add any old tool to this list. Here are the criteria we used for those that made the cut:

Supports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers

Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible)

Allows both students and teachers to take the activator role when possible (sometimes teachers need to get things started)

Before you dig into the tools, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about exactly what you want to accomplish with your students. "How to pick the right digital tool: Start with your learning goal" by Erin Beard can help you wrap your head around goals and guide you in choosing the best tool for the task. "27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning" can help you decide what strategies work best for you and your students.

Record audio and video

Create quizzes, polls, and surveys

1. Crowdsignal Lets you create online polls, quizzes, and questions. Students can use smartphones, tablets, and computers to provide their answers, and information can be culled for reports.

2. Edulastic Allows you to make standards-aligned assessments and get instant feedback.

3. FreeOnlineSurveys Helps you create surveys, quizzes, forms, and polls.

4. Gimkit Lets you write real-time quizzes. And it was designed by a high school student!

5. Kahoot! A game-based classroom response system that lets you create quizzes using internet content.

6. MicroPoll Helps you create polls, embed them into websites, and analyze responses.

7. Naiku Lets you write quizzes students can answer using their mobile devices.

8. Obsurvey Designed to make surveys, polls, and questionnaires.

9. Poll Everywhere Lets you create a feedback poll or ask questions and see results in real time. Allows students to respond in various ways. With open-ended questions, you can capture data and spin up tag clouds to aggregate responses.

10. Poll Maker Offers unique features, like allowing multiple answers to one question.

11. ProProfs Helps you make quizzes, polls, and surveys.

12. Quia Lets you create games, quizzes, surveys, and more. Access a database of existing quizzes from other educators.

13. Quizalize Helps you create quizzes and homework.

14. Quizizz Guides you through designing quizzes and lets you include students in the quiz-writing process.

15. Quizlet Lets you make flashcards, tests, quizzes, and study games that are mobile friendly.

16. Survey Hero Designed to build questionnaires and surveys.

17. SurveyMonkey Helpful for online polls and surveys.

18. SurveyPlanet Also helpful for online polls and surveys.

19. Triventy Lets you create quizzes students take in real time using individual devices.

20. Yacapaca Helps you write and assign quizzes.

21. Zoho Survey Allows you to make mobile-friendly surveys and see results in real time.

Brainstorm, mind map, and collaborate

Present, engage, and inspire

Generate word or tag clouds

1. EdWordle Generates word clouds from any entered text to help aggregate responses and facilitate discussion. Word clouds are pictures composed of a cloud of smaller words that form a clue to the topic.

2. Tagxedo Allows you to examine student consensus and facilitate dialogues.

3. Wordables Helps you elicit evidence of learning or determine background knowledge about a topic.

4. WordArt Includes a feature that allows the user to make each word an active link to connect to websites, including YouTube.

Get real-time feedback

Foster family communication

1. Remind Lets you text students and stay in touch with families.

2. Seesaw Helps you improve family communication and makes formative assessment easy, while students can use the platform to document their learning.

3. Voxer Lets you send recordings so families can hear how their students are doing, students can chat about their work, and you can provide feedback.

Strengthen teacher-to-student or student-to-student communication

Keep the conversation going with live chats

1. Yo Teach A backchannel site great for keeping the conversation going with students.

2. Chatzy Supports live, online chats in a private setting.

Create and store documents or assignments

1. Google Forms A Google Drive app that allows you to create documents students can collaborate on in real time using smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

2. Piazza Lets you upload lectures, assignments, and homework; pose and respond to student questions; and poll students about class content. This tool is better suited for older students as it mimics post-secondary class instructional formats.

Learn more

There are several resources for learning more about formative assessment and responsive instruction strategies. Consider our formative practices workshops, where school and district teams can gain a better understanding of the role formative practice plays in instruction and the four foundational practices to use in the classroom. Or for a quick start, download our eBook "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

Jump in, try new tools and methods, and have fun!

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75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

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We've compiled an extensive list of 75 digital tools that can help teachers use formative assessment to elicit evidence of student learning.

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What It Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well

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What It Means to Teach Gifted Learners Well

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7 Ways to Scaffold Instruction for English Language Learners

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7 Ways to Scaffold Instruction for English Language Learners

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ELA posts - Teach. Learn. Grow. The education blog

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ELA relies on so much of a learner’s toolkit: reading, writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, speaking and listening, speech and debate, poetry and research. With such a robust landscape, we promise to provide equally rich resources.

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Supporting ESL Students: 10 Tips for Mainstream Teachers

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Supporting ESL Students: 10 Tips for Mainstream Teachers

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The number of ESL students is highly disproportionate to the amount of ESL and/or Bilingual teachers in the U.S. today. Without the number of necessary trained ESL/Bilingual teachers, and lack of first language support, it is imperative that mainstream teachers play a major role in contributing to the success of the ESL student. ESL students can and will be successful given that all teachers provide the necessary platform and ongoing continuum of support. This support must come from both an ESL pedagogical view, as well as, an emotional, social, and developmental lens.

ESL Tips and Strategies

The 10 tips and strategies below are intended to help mainst ream teachers meet the needs of our wonderful, diverse population. The first five tips focus on social, developmental and emotional needs, while the last 5 focus on ESL pedagogy, methods and strategies. Using these tips together will provide a balanced approach, as they are both integral to English acquisition.

Social, Emotional and Developmental Needs of the ESL learner:

1. Cultural Awareness: All teachers should take a moment to self-reflect about their own understandings and questions in regard to cultural differences. Take the time to learn about different cultures, gestures, and traditions and celebrate these differences with all of the students in the classroom. Encourage all students to share their culture with classmates.

2. Empathize: Try to imagine how overwhelming it must feel to leave your home country and family members while trying to assimilate, learn and socialize in a foreign language. Be aware that ESL students will be in culture shock and feel highly alienated for some time. Garner patience and understand that it will take time for ESL students to talk, as a silent period is highly expected. Smile and show support to your best ability.

3. Provide A Comfort Zone: Assess where the ESL student's abilities are in relation to basic survival skills and needs. Assign a friendly and welcoming buddy to assist with common school locations, requirements and routines. If possible, keep an extra eye out during busy transition times to assure the student gets to the correct location. If possible, find someone in the school, another classmate, parent or volunteer that may speak the student's language. Connecting the student with someone who speaks his/her native language will provide a great deal of comfort.

4. Spotlight Respect For A ll Cultures: Reaffirm the message about being supportive of one another, kind, understanding and patient. Encourage everyone to openly talk about their personal cultures, traditions and languages. Have parties celebrating the different cultures in the class, sharing music, historical family photos, dances, games, food and traditions. Hold discussions about the history of America, immigration, and the value of diversity and differences. Encourage students to share their own stories of immigration, passed down from generation to generation.

5. Community: If the parents and/or guardians do not speak English, request an interpreter if possible for all school communication, including parties, conferences and special events. Invite parents to all school community functions to encourage and foster a sense of belonging. If possible, introduce other students and/or families who speak the same language as the ESL student. Sharing cultural commonalities will provide strong bonds for students, parents and teachers.

6. Assess Students Informally: Assess ESL students on an inf ormal basis when they first arrive to class, and ongoing during the school year. It is imperative to primarily check for understanding in regard to basic and social needs. Pay attention from the sideline to see if they know numbers, letters and/or short English phrases. Continuously check for comprehension and growth informally, make notes and never be afraid to raise the bar and challenge a bit.

7. Don't Discourage Native Language Use: With all good intentions, this is a common mistake teachers can make. ESL students who have a stronger foundation of their native language will have a shorter route to acquiring English. Don't discourage native language use, as this will result in negative feelings about the student's language and culture, and may cause delay in English language acquisition. Provide free time for the ESL student to rea d and write in their native language.

8. Use Manipulatives, Visuals, Games, Music and Hands-On Activities in the Classroom: According to William Glaser, we learn 80% of what we experience, and 95% of what we teach others. ESL students do exceptionally well when this theory is followed. Involve them in projects that will encourage them to talk as much as possible with their classmates. Some ideas for projects are the following: cooking (following easy directions), art (drawing, painting, sculpture), musical activities (music provides an amazing platform for learning), and acting (for example, charades).

9. Provide Various Opportunities For Talking and Consider Seat Placement: It is very important to consider seat placement in the classroom for the ESL student. All too often, ESL students are seated in the back of the classroom, which leads to a great lack of contribution, listening, an d participation. Try and seat the ESL student close to the front, especially with other students who are inviting and enjoy conversation. Provide the most opportunities as possible for talking and listening to others in the class via group work. You will be surprised how much shorter the silent period will end.

10. Communicate with the ESL teacher: Maintain communication with the ESL teacher as much as possible. The sooner both teachers are working together, the quicker the student will learn English. Be open to the ESL teacher's suggestions, let him/her share in the modification of classwork, and invite the ESL teacher into your classroom.

For more information about receiving an approval or ESL endorsement, please visit this article: http://www.ednewsdaily.com/?p=863

If there is a concern, a question, or if you simply need some advice, build this bridge together, as both teachers are there to support and help the ESL student succeed.

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Supporting ESL Students: 10 Tips For Mainstream Teachers - WeAreTeachers

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By guest blogger Robyn Shulman of Ed News Daily From the 1997-98 school year to the 2008-09 school year, the amount of ESL learners enrolled in U.S. public schools increased from 3.5 million to 5.3 million, a 51% increase (National Clearinghouse for English ...

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Our Colorín Colorado resource library is filled with tools and materials that you can use in the classroom, with parents, and for your own professional development!

These resources include tip sheets, research reports, recommended websites, resources organized by state, and much more.

What You'll Find in This Section

How can we help English language learners successfully meet the Common Core State Standards? This resource section offers ideas and materials including classroom videos, teacher interviews, and bilingual parent tips.

How can we help English language learners successfully meet the Common Core State Standards? This resource section offers ideas and materials including classroom videos, teacher interviews, and bilingual parent tips.

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Our Colorín Colorado resource library is filled with tools and materials that you can use in the classroom, with parents, and for your own professional development! These resources include tip sheets, research reports, recommended websites, resources organized by state, and much more. How can we help English language learners successfully meet the Common Core State Standards?

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Strategies for Supporting English Language Learners

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Strategies for Supporting English Language Learners

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Virginia "Jenny" Williams uses assessment and scaffolding to support the five stages of second-language acquisition

Academic language is a necessity to convey mastery of academic content for all students, but it is especially important that students with language differences in English be allowed to "practice" their language skills in the context of the classroom. For students who are English language learners (ELLs), learning English has many levels, and academic language is one that emerges quite late. ELLs will often learn the social contexts of English long before they master the elements that they need for learning and conveying their knowledge of academic content. Academic language can take five to seven years to acquire at levels that are needed for a typical classroom in the U.S. Alfred and Nino (2011) write in their text Leading Academic Achievement for English Language Learners, that "it is important for faculty members to understand that linguistic differences are another dimension of student diversity," and that diversity can call for differentiated assessment and instruction. They suggest that ELLs require scaffold instruction to gain confidence and skills in academic language.

This is no easy task. What is it that teachers need to do to scaffolded instruction for students who are learning English? To answer this question, we first need to think about the various levels of English learners.
1. Preproduction (also known as the silent period)
2. Early Production
3. Speech Emergence
4. Intermediate Fluency
5. Advanced Fluency

Each of these stages has distinct skill characteristics and therefore call for different instructional strategies. Interim assessments such as NWEA's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) and progress-monitoring tools such as Skills Navigator can help teachers identify the stage of student functioning, and the strategies that students need for support and chart their growth over time.

Preproduction: Students need structure, supports, and ongoing assessment, sometimes in both languages.

In the preproduction (silent period) phase, learners are beginning to understand English when they hear it, but they are not ready to speak. Similar to an infant learning language, they have a small receptive vocabulary of words that they recognize and can connect to the things in their immediate environment. They often attempt to imitate words, but have distorted sounds and can use them in incorrect contexts. This is the stage in which it is important to allow English learners to practice English in the classroom. Providing safe environments for students to engage in discourse with peers and the teacher not only builds English oral skills, it also provides students with the opportunity to practice academic-focused language. Because academic language develops more slowly, students need to practice using this type of language in structured ways. Students at this level need extensive graphic support. They are concrete learners, and need information presented in the context in which they are using it. Often, a list of cognates (words that have similar meanings and spellings in both languages) and false cognates (words that have similar spellings or sounds but have different meanings) can be helpful to students. Assessment for students at this stage of development might occur in both their native and second languages, especially in math, and can be done primarily through interim measures. When using both languages to assess, teachers understand the concepts that students understand in one language and not the other. This can be an important distinction, because instruction for concept development is quite different than instruction for acquiring the ability to express thoughts tied to a concept in a second language.

Early Production: Students require transitional vocabulary, visual supports, and assessment that focuses on the ability to process content in the second language.

As students enter the early production phase, they begin to speak. This is the phase when teachers often say "they are really coming out of their shells." In this phase, they are beginning to understand what they are hearing and reading, but their expressive skills are still limited. Students in this phase are listeners and readers but not speakers and writers. Scaffolding strategies during this phase can include sentence stems, concrete learning opportunities that are contextualized, graphic organizers, and very structured opportunities for language production in relation to the academic content areas. One major difference in social language and academic language is the use of transition words. Effective academic language requires transitions between thoughts to ensure that the listeners (or readers) understand the thinking behind what the speaker is saying. For ELLs, this means that the teacher may need to pre-teach or provide a structured format for including the words in the conversation. For instance, the teacher could employ sentence starters which include transition words critical for the content. Formative assessment at this stage might begin to focus on the students' ability to process content in the second language. Thorough analysis of written work, such as drawings, graphic organizers, and sequencing of content when using visual tools, can provide tremendous insight into a student's understanding at this point of second-language acquisition. At this point in time, it may be beneficial to begin a structured progress-monitoring process that measures growth.

Speech Emergence: Students can rely on visual organizers and peers for support. Assessment focuses on academic content acquisition through the second language.

Students in the speech emergence phase understand more of the language they are hearing, and they begin to use that language to communicate their ideas. They can ask simple questions in class and write simple stories and paragraphs about the content they encounter. While these students still require significant support, the reliance on adults for scaffolding can slowly diminish and be replaced by consistent use of graphic organizers, word banks, and small-group work with peers. Having many opportunities to speak and write is critical at this stage of language acquisition. Utilizing formative-assessment strategies such as "Here's what! So what? Now what?" can provide teachers with an understanding of the students' ability to understand academic concepts in the second language. Continued progress monitoring that locates gaps in understanding can be beneficial for guiding the instruction and strategies. At this stage, the instructional strategies could still encompass graphics and drawings along with words, as students express their ideas. Some use of the native language may also be observed at this stage and should not be alarming, because students are beginning to integrate the two languages to express their thoughts.

Intermediate Fluency: Students still need support but can process at higher levels of thought. Assessment based on metacognition strategies provides guidance for instructional understanding and support.

In the intermediate fluency stage, students start to produce complex sentences. They are better able to transfer metacognitive skills for comprehending academic content, can initiate questions in class, and are increasing their vocabulary exponentially. However, their thought processes are still reliant on their native languages, and therefore they continue to make errors in sentence structure and vocabulary use. Students at this stage need supports such as extended time for processing questions and formulating answers. Instruction should be focused on increasing higher-ordered thinking in the second language and reflective self-analysis of their work. Group work with peers can begin to take the form of constructive feedback and reflective conversations regarding their thoughts and thought processes. Strategies such as "If/Then" and "MIP" or "most important point" can provide teachers and students with an understanding of the metacognitive skills that are being used in the second language to gain academic concepts. Again, it would not be uncommon to find vocabulary and sentence structure from the native language evident in student products. Because this phase is focused on increasing higher-order thinking, it is important to explicitly teach the social contexts of language. This often means that students need to have abstract language interpreted prior to engaging in discourse or print that includes these language forms. If the content contains idioms, metaphors, similes, slang, or other such abstract language, then directly teach the meaning prior to introducing the content. This allows students to understand the meaning of the content without struggling with syntax and vocabulary that have alternate meanings, and allows them to focus on the critical meaning of the content. More formal assessment at this stage may include interim measures for assessing progress toward academic standards, along with progress monitoring that is measuring gaps in learning.

Advanced fluency: Students focus on sharing of ideas and understanding others' perspectives.

Advanced fluency, the final phase of second-language acquisition, can take five to seven years to emerge. During this stage, students take on a near-native ability in the second language when speaking, but academic language may still be developing. Continued use of visual and graphic supports is often the only scaffolding that students need, but it is important that these supports stay in place, because visual organizers support the brain mapping that is needed for concept development in the second language. Utilizing consensus clusters or "Four Sides" as assessment tools can promote deep conversation, sharing of ideas, clarification, and important background knowledge that support perspective taking. Teachers can use these formative-assessment tools to help students gain a better understanding of academic content and their peers' perceptions. Again, formal assessment tools may include interim measures of assessment and progress-monitoring tools that target the gap areas.

With a better understanding of the various stages of second-language development, the use of assessment tools such as MAP, and Skills Navigator, ongoing formative assessment, and the use of instructional scaffolding, teachers can set students up for growth and a positive mindset regarding their academic achievement.

Links
Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) https://www.nwea.org/resources/comprehensive-guide-map-k-12-computer-adaptive-interim-assessment/
Skills Navigator https://www.nwea.org/assessments/skills-navigator/
"Here's what! So what? Now what?" http://www.s2temsc.org/uploads/1/8/8/7/18873120/heres_what_so_what_now_what_strategy.pdf
"MIP" or Most Important Point http://www.s2temsc.org/uploads/1/8/8/7/18873120/most_important_point_strategy.pdf
Four Sides http://www.fortheteachers.org/instructional_strategies/#FourSides

Virginia "Jenny" Williams holds a doctorate in curriculum studies and educational leadership from Georgia Southern University. Williams has held a variety of positions within education including speech-language pathologist, lead teacher, literacy coach, assistant special education director, program specialist for a regional education service agency, and college professor. For the past eight years, Williams has been responsible for providing professional development to guide teachers through data-analysis processes focusing on instructional decision making. Williams joined NWEA three years ago and leads professional-development trainings for the not-for-profit organization.

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Virginia "Jenny" Williams uses assessment and scaffolding to support the five stages of second-language acquisition Academic language is a necessity to convey mastery of academic content for all students, but it is especially important that students with language differences in English be allowed to "practice" their language skills in the context of the classroom.

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Universal Design for Learning (eLearning)

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Universal Design for Learning (eLearning)

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Supporting All Students through Universal Design for Learning

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02 Responsive Instruction (see Learning Guide)

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02 Responsive Instruction (see Learning Guide)

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The education blog

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Teach. Learn. Grow. | Voices of educators and experts

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A blog covering classroom tips, early learning, literacy, assessment, equity, SEL, and more.

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NWEA Professional Learning Community MAP Skills Space

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NWEA Professional Learning Community MAP Skills Space

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Connect with fellow practitioners and experts

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Planning for Responsive Instruction: Resources

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Planning for Responsive Instruction: Resources

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NWEA Professional Learning Online

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Planning for Responsive Instruction Learning Guide 

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Planning for Responsive Instruction Learning Guide 

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Digital workbook for your workshop

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01 Setting the Stage + 05 Reflection and Planning

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01 Setting the Stage + 05 Reflection and Planning