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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…