What IS Teacher Clarity? Simply put, teacher clarity means an educator has absolute clarity about what students are to learn, know, and be able to do for an upcoming instructional focus before they pl…Read More

Today an educator may equate the word, “assessment” to “test,” and as such, see it as an isolated event that takes place periodically: at the end of the week in the form of a quiz, at the end …Read More

On June 30, 2017, I co-presented a breakout session entitled, “Formative Assessment: Flourishing or Floundering?” with two of my education heroes, W. James Popham and Margaret Heritage, at NCSA, t…Read More

Larry Ainsworth, author of Prioritizing the Common Core: Identifying Specific Standards to Emphasize the Most (2013) So many standards, so little time… How can classroom teachers be expected to teac…Read More

“Unwrapping” the Standards: A Simple Way to Deconstruct Learning Outcomes Contributed by Larry Ainsworth, author of “Unwrapping” the Common Core: A Practical Process to Manage Rigorous Standar…Read More

The Beginning A native Californian, 22 years old, straight out of college with a minor in education, I wanted to teach! The year was 1970 and Chicago Public Schools was in need of teachers, so that’…Read More

When professional educators are engaged in ways to improve student achievement, staff morale, and equity and advocacy, we leave learning sessions with a newfound enthusiasm. I recently attended the Co…Read More

This post was originally published on Common Formative Assessments by Larry Ainsworth. How can teachers really know what their impact is on student learning? As educators, we want to make learning vis…Read More