Taught for 12 years, experience with Pre-K, now instructional coach, and 2020 national teacher of the year!

Personal definition of assessment: Gives an accurate picture of where students are. Not only academically but personally.

Assessment tools: Dial four and apes (involves families).

Work smarter not harder: Concentrate day by day. Created small systems that are routines within routines. Allow students to be more independent so you can work with smaller groups. Think about environment set up. Focus on things that can be done before students enter the room.

Assessment that had a great impact: It can be difficult to get an accurate picture of what each student can do. Pay attention to the small details. Speak to families. They can have information that can help the students learning tremendously.

Greatest advice to new teachers: Lean on the support in your community. TAKE THE HELP, RESOURCES, AND ADVICE. Build connections.

Any book that teaches you to address your own biases. “How to build an equitable classroom”.

Rosproy always wanted to help people. Taught Spanish to Preschoolers in high school and she became inspired.

Why teach? Teaching gives you purpose… Be purposeful and give back to your community in a meaningful way.

Loved the assessments at the end of the video. Snowflakes with students important milestones. Lesson plans posted, that way everyone is on the same page.

Personal definition of assessment: Assessment is simply a procedure for making inferences

Go-to assessments: White boards, the pace of a class has so much todo with your opportunities to respond. Make new connections. Give time to pause and have conversation with each other.

Work smarter, not harder: Understand what inferences I am trying to make. If assessments are planned strategically then I can get the information I need in a more efficient way.

Validity & Reliability: Being able to put our eyes on the results.

Story telling: The idea of whenever I learn something, I learn one thing about it and then I learn multiple things about it until I understand it relationally.

Advice for new teachers: Teach to the test! We should always be truly starting with our assessment. We should focus on our assessment and build our instruction around the assessment. Make sure your instruction has room for flexible thinking.

IS practice guides- Help children with different strategies for students who are having a difficult time understanding content.

Assessment: Anything by John Pegg, solo taxonomy. Dylan William, videos.

How Spencer became an educator: So he could play football… A good teacher is a good coach.

Why should we teach? You won’t know until you meet your kids.

Personal definition of assessment: “Show me what you know, where are they at?”

Goals: All of her students grow in her classroom.

ITS NOT ALL ABOUT THE CONTENT… We need to know our students and know who they are when they walk into the classroom.

Go-to assessments: Learning continuum with a map as standardized tool. Group students and figure out where they are.

Big on small groups…

Work smarter, not harder: Collaborate with your team. Work better together.

Story time: Working in small groups is very important. Small group environment can be life changing for teachers. It gives you a chance to grow with your students and connect with them one on one.

Advice: Don’t walk alone!! Take everyone with you. Receiving advice from other teachers and even walking into other classrooms can give you different perspectives and insights.

Twitter/Instagram: A great way to connect with other teachers and see what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. Core books/Mentor texts… How to hug a porcupine.

How you became an educator: Comes from a long line of teachers in the family. Never wanted to be anything else but a teacher. Loves working with students.

Why should we teacher: Teachers make an impact on students lives.

ROOM TOUR!!!

Everyone has genius wall…Everyone writes down their genius.

Classroom jobs

Leadership board… What can we work on.

Flexible seating

Anchor charts

Exit tickets… quick assessments

Student voice board

Anchor charts, change out essential question everyday on each subject.

Syllable posters

Personal definition of assessment: Wide range of assessments. They can be very informal/formal, or purely observations. It can also range and go all the way up to standardized testing. Determine eligibility for an IEP. Assessment is important for SPED teachers.

Anecdotal vs. Data driven: She uses both all the time. When looking at younger kids with more complex behaviors, anecdotal notes are great. Behavior checklist and sheets are good for concrete data.

Go-to assessments: Running records and FMPS. FMPS are benchmark assessments. Listening to students read helps determine what kids of errors students make along with what skills they lack. Sit down, one-on-one settings.

Work smarter not harder: Amount of time spent doing it helps. Use the resources around you. Be efficient with your time!!

Incredible impact on a student with assessment: High IQ but did not want to work for specific teachers in the classroom. Data showed her how to work with this specific student.

Advice for my own classroom: Be careful who you surround yourself with. Be around positive people. Surround yourself with the good.

Resources: Filter out the bad. Make time for yourself to reflect on why you are doing what you’re doing (teaching). Twitter feed, get to see great moments. Try not to be on social media too much.

Story time: Intro to SPED stole her heart. Love having small groups. You get to really connect with students and their families.

Why teach?: You can make a difference in one students life. You can make an impact. Getting students to believe in themselves…

Instructional coach for teachers.

Go-to assessments: Educator rubric or rubrics in general. Keep you tied to your general standards. Creating your own rubric is key. Match rubrics with your OWN goals and roles.

Work smarter not harder: Rubrics are easy. You know exactly what your expectations are from them. Not everything has to be graded. Informal instruction give us better insight.

Incredible impact on student through assessment: Take risk with students and share with them as well. They can be successful with rubrics.

Advice for teachers: Have procedures and routines in the beginning of the year. START THIS ASAP. They need to be reviewed and retaught. Create safety in the classroom (Structure).

Must reads for educators: Learning by doing. Follow the plan of a good PLC. Listen to podcasts for leaderships and educators.

Why be an educator? Teach for kids. Make connections with students. Give them opportunities to be independent.

Take the time to get in there and do research!!!

What did you notice about their advice? What I noticed about the advice from the guest mentors is that when it came to the question “Why Teach?” They all made amazing points. To get to know your students as much as you can. If you’re not a teacher for the students then why really be a teacher? You have to want to be a teacher for the students. To make a difference in their lives and to make them the best students they can possibly be.

What are the strategies that you heard most often? The strategy I heard the most was to do your research. No matter what is it you are doing. Whether it is assessment or lessons. Make sure that what you are teaching is accurate and true. Which is why it is so important to do your research. You don’t want to be feeding your students information that is not accurate. Do your research on both students and content.

Which mentor did you connect with? Explain why! I feel connected with Christina Williams the most. Her classroom and classroom tour has been my absolute favorite. She seemed so fun, bubbly, and most important happy to be a teacher. You could tell just by her classroom tour that she loves what she does. My most favorite thing from her classroom was her leadership board. I also loved that she mentioned it was not all about the content. We need to get to know our students as much as possible.

What surprised you about any of the Mentors? What surprised me the most ALL guest mentors were the personal definitions of assessment. I liked hearing how different they all they were but still were along the same lines. Some personal definitions were more formal but some weren’t. I also enjoyed hearing the personal definitions because of how similar some were to the personal definition I had in my head.

What are one or two questions you would like to pose to a Mentor Educator? -How can I assess students who are in the lower percentile without making them feel any less? -How can I include assessment in my day to day schedule? Or even once or a twice a week.