Laying the Groundwork for the 1st Five Days
The first five days of school are critical to establishing rapport and developing crucial relationships that will mark the tone and success of the year.
Competency-Based Grading Made Easier with the MasteryBook by Jordana Benone, High School Teacher and MasteryBook User
Teacher confession: The end of the school year has always been tough for me. While there is always lots of celebration and relief that the end has come, the realities when facing my gradebook make me question every move I made. Of course, this was worse when I graded on points and averages, but even with the change to standards-based and then competency-based grading, I still had my struggles.
Student Reflections: MasteryBook
In advance of their grading conferences at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, Portal students were asked to reflect on a number of questions about their learning. One of the questions was, “How did your understanding of your learning change once we started to use MasteryBook? What did you do differently once you had MasteryBook as a tool?”
Starr Sackstein on the Second Edition of her book Hacking Assessment
Starr Sackstein on her New BookHacking Assessment Second Edition Listen to Mastery Portfolio’s COO, Starr Sackstein, on the Equity & Access Pre-K 12 Podcast as she discusses her new book Hacking Assessment Volume 2, coming this July! In this episode, Larry Jacobs and Starr not only discuss her new book but dive into […]
Deepen Reflection, Deepen Learning
Teachers can learn a lot from asking students to reflect and self-assess against the standards and we do the students and ourselves a disservice by not making it an expectation. Perhaps writing a reflection like this isn’t appropriate for every class, maybe a video or voice recording would be better.
A Better Way to Report Learning
What is the function of a student report card? What does it seek to communicate? How effectively do most student report cards share information about individual student achievement? What if we rebranded our communication loop? What would that look like?
The Emotional Weight of Being Graded, for Better or Worse
The trouble with these extreme emotional reactions to grades is that students’ knowledge of a subject is tied to their experience of the grade.
Giving Effective Feedback
In this episode, Isaac and Starr Sackstein discuss giving effective feedback and ways teachers can manage giving feedback and holding students accountable in order to be efficient in maintaining the strategies you share with kids. Effective feedback is how we increase learning for all kids. The better we do it, the better they learn. How […]
Co-Constructing Success Criteria with Students
In Episode 167 of The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast Starr Sackstein and Jennifer Gonzalez talk about Co-constructing success criteria of students. Why is co-constructing success criteria with students important? What is the purpose of co-construction of success criteria? How can educators start using self-assessment in their own classrooms? Listen to the podcast and book a […]
Office Hours: 30 minutes with Constance Borro
“Having specific, real-time data doesn’t seem possible in the status quo, but it is possible, and that data is transformative. “ Constance Borro, CEO of Mastery Portfolio Constance Borro, CEO of Mastery Portfolio, sat down with R.E.A.L Discussion to talk about Mastery Portoflio’s beginning, its strengths, and our ultimate goal of revolutionizing grading and assessment practices […]
