The EASL Institute: Equity and Achievement for Standards-Based Learning

Posted Sat, 11/21/2009 - 03:34 by pbaker

Welcome to the EASL Institute

The Institute's mission is to serve as a center for resources, training, and policy on formative and achievement based assessment. Our work means to contribute to bringing about a fundamental change in education, making assessment an integral part of equitable, standards-based teaching and learning.  We work with teachers and students to develop classrooms which are designed for both to succeed.

teachers at summer institute 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

What makes a good outcome

Posted Thu, 07/15/2010 - 12:19 by admin

Writing Good Outcomes

 Here are some guidelines for creating good outcomes.  Download this document to take with you.

 

Presentation to Bridges Network Schools 5/26/2010

Posted Thu, 05/27/2010 - 14:30 by pbaker

Outcomes-based assessment presentation at Baruch College Campus HS

Despite less than ideal conditions, participants worked hard and absorbed a lot of information on Wednesday afternoon.  Here are links to the presentation.

To see sample rubrics, click here

If you'd like to contact Peggy, click here

Tips and Tricks

Posted Mon, 04/19/2010 - 11:48 by pbaker

Tips and Tricks

EASE software has been an important tool for managing student assessment data.  Here we offer tips for using the software effectively.

Deleting duplicate outcomes

Occasionally users inadvertently create duplicate outcomes, or include outcomes they decide not to use.  We've created a brief video to step you through the process of eliminating duplicates.  When using this process, it's important to be sure that no data (evidence, student ratings) has been entered for the outcome you decide to delete.  Also, unless you are absolutely certain that an outcome will never be used again, use the "Delete from Course" option, not the Delete from System.

To see the video, click the play button:

EASL Institutes Participates in National Science Foundation Research Grant

Posted Thu, 03/25/2010 - 23:14 by admin

National Science Foundation awards $2.4 million grant to study outcomes-based assessment and mathematics teaching and learning

The EASl Institute will partner with the 21st Century Partnership for Stem Education (21PStem) in a four-year research project studying attitudes and student success in learning mathematics when supported by outcomes-based assessment.  The project, called Proficiency-based Assessment and Reassessment of Learning Outcomes (PARLO), will incorporate EASE software as a crucial component of the project.  21PStem is based in the greater Philadelphia area and will engage 9th grade Algebra teachers from more than 40 schools around the area.

parlo header

 

Support The EASL Institute NFP

Posted Tue, 02/02/2010 - 00:34 by pbaker

The EASL Institute NFP has been determined to qualify as a 501(c)(3) organizationby the Internal Revenue Service.  Donations made to the EASL Institute are tax exempt.  To donate to the EASL Institute, checks may be sent to the Institute at 3115 S. Michigan Ave, #407, Chicago IL 60616.  

To find out more about supporting the EASL Institute,

Not Yet? On the Road to Proficient

Posted Sun, 01/10/2010 - 03:31 by admin

Not Yet: Not Failure

One of the core values of the EASL Institute is equity.  We believe that the traditional grading system, which labels many students as failures early in their academic lives,has been very costly to the individual students affected and to our society more broadly.  When the staff at Young Women's Leadership Charter School adopted High Performance, Proficient, and Not Yet Proficient as their terminology for describing student learning with respect to the academic outcomes they found that students, particularly students who hadn't experienced a lot of success, the effect was liberating. 

As more schools have adopted outcomes-based assessment, they have modified the initial terminology in various ways depending on their own needs: some schools in New York have chosen to reflect the state's terminology, using Meets Standards or Exceeds Standards; in Oakland, California, a charter school uses Meets Expectations and Exceeds Expectations.  But all the schools have found that Not Yets resonate with their students.  Even teachers have found that we are all Not Yet in something.

Here is how Chicago Talent Development High School promotes their belief that all students can become proficient.

Got Proficient-CTDHS

poster by City Year team at CTDHS

Creating Rubrics - Notes from A Workshop

Posted Sat, 12/26/2009 - 16:47 by admin

Benefits of Rubrics, and some tips and tricks

At a recent Instructional Leadership Team Institute convened by the Network for College Success Camille Farrington led a discussion of rubrics.  While the Network's focus is on school-wide rubrics for member schools' Targeted Instructional Areas, much of the conversation was relevant to the assessment we talk about at the EASL Institute.

Good things come from Rubrics

Workshop practitioners came up with a quick list of positive outcomes derived from using rubrics:

  • Consistent standards for all students;
  • Transparency: our expectations are clear
  • Stress reduction: good rubrics take the personalities out of assessment;
  • Students understand the goals with a clearly written rubric;
  • Rubrics can lead to rich, formative discussion in class;
  • Consistency can help lead to data on student success, thus playing a formative role in our teaching.

Rubrics for All vs Rubrics for Everything

When we stress the importance of using rubrics so that all students see how we will know what they know and evaluate it, sometimes teachers feel they need to create rubrics for every piece of evidence a student provides.  This is both unnecessary and counterproductive! Not all evidence is so formally evaluated; many times we use informal assessments to "take the temperature" of the classroom--is the main point getting through, or is confusion the dominant situation?  Given the demands on teachers' planning and time, it's more important to get frequent feedback loops between student and teacher than to have worked out rubrics for each relatively informal assessment.

 

About the EASL Institute

Posted Thu, 12/24/2009 - 03:30 by admin

The EASL Institute, and Outcomes-based Assessment

The EASL Institute was founded in response to the interest in data-driven, outcomes-based assessment from school leaders and teachers nationally.  After doing many presentations to workshops and conferences nationally, and guiding implementation in several schools, the Institute's founders decided to create a non-profit Institute as a home for the work of transforming teaching and learning based on learning targets, evidence of learning, and deep work around bringing these elements to the center of a school's learning community.

Schools Using EASE

Posted Thu, 12/24/2009 - 01:40 by admin

A Dozen Schools Using EASE and the EASL approach
to teaching and learning:

Several schools in New York City and Chicago have adopted the EASE approach to teaching, learning, and assessment for the 2009-10 academic year. 

In Chicago:

Chicago Talent Development High School  CTDHS logo

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