What It Is: As educators, we always strive to help our students succeed. Sometimes this means implementing Response to Intervention (RTI), or more recently, Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) in the classroom as a way to intervene to support struggling students. While RTI focuses primarily on academic instruction, intervention, and assessments based on progress-monitoring and…

What It Is: With the article “Inside the Black Box,” originally published in 1998, an educational practice known as Assessment for Learning (AFL) has gained much notoriety. Having been called “one of the most important instructional strategies ever studied,” Assessment for Learning is focused on the use of scaffolded learning targets written in student-friendly language and activities that are intended to…

What It Is: Five years ago, very few educators had even heard the term “Data-Driven Decision Making.”  Today, very few have not.  DDDM, or “informed instruction,” is the practice of using real-time assessment data to inform teachers’ instruction. By frequently looking at data, educators can know exactly which students are struggling/succeeding and which standards/skills they…

What They Are: Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are educational environments in which teachers work together as a team.  They hold each other accountable and focus more on learning and less on teaching (“Are my students doing a good job of learning standards?” vs. “Am I doing a good job of teaching the standards?”). This team approach fosters collaboration among educators,…

What They Are Formative assessments are frequently assigned activities (not necessarily test, exams or quizzes) given throughout a lesson or unit that provide teachers with measures of student progress.  “Common” assessments refer to those given by every teacher on a particular team or grade level. Common formative assessments provide a true “apples-to-apples” comparison among classes and students that can stimulate…

What They Are: Most states have hundreds of learning standards and many more subsets of those standards.  Educators can’t (and shouldn’t) teach them all in great depth.  So, the process of identifying those standards that are most important is critical to helping teachers focus their instruction. How eDoctrina Helps: eDoctrina’s Power Standards tool (which is pre-loaded and…

What It Is: Another practice that is becoming increasingly popular is Response to Intervention (RTI).  This refers to the practice of educators intervening to support struggling students in a proactive manner.  Schools use data to identify students that are falling behind, monitor their progress, provide evidence-based interventions and adjust those interventions depending on a student’s…