Hacking Assessment:
Assessment & Grading in the Remote & Onsite Classroom Environments

(A Three-Part Virtual Series)
January 13, 20, 27, 2021 
4:00 – 5:30 PM

“What’s my grade? What’s it worth? Is there extra credit? Is this for a mark?” It’s time to shift the conversation.

In this engaging and interactive three-part virtual workshop, explore the ways classroom teachers and administrators can adjust current practices to be a more inclusive, student-centered experience.  With reflection, self-assessment, and feedback, the conversation in the classroom (whether remote or in-person) can change to be one that is more than a grade on a piece of paper, but rather one that is about growth.

Session 1: Shifting the Assessment Mindset – January 13, 2021

In this session, participants will

• explore their beliefs and values around assessment.
• review current practices
• address stakeholder buy-in and a basic understanding of formative assessment through project-based learning.
• review other assessment peripheries like extra credit, late work, homework, and other compliance measures.
• explore the role of equity in shifting the grading mindset.

Session 2:  Teach Reflection and Student Self-Assessment – January 20, 2021

At the heart of learning is reflection, the metacognitive process that allows us to dig deeper into the understanding of what we know and can do, and what we continue to need practice with.  In this session, participants will

• explore teaching students to be reflective in their practice and how it will go a long way in helping classroom teachers be more effective in their instructional practices.
• examine what excellent standards-based reflection looks like.
• discuss how to help students enrich their meta-cognitive practices. 
• practic how to scaffold the process.
• learn to embed reflection for better student learning and teacher feedback.

Student Self-Assessment

• learn how to bring students into the assessment process.
• discuss the co-creation of rubrics and success criteria.
• review how to get students to look more objectively at their own learning on a mastery scale.

Session 3:  Rebranding Assignments as Learning Experiences and Defending Learning with Student-Led Portfolio Conferences – Januaey 27, 2021

Rather than just make an assignment to have a grade to put in the grade book, each learning experience should provide multiple pathways to learning where student voice and choice are highlighted in the experience of learning.

In session 3, participants will

• review assignments they currently use and rebrand them into deeper, more memorable learning experiences that will target very specific learning outcomes.

Report cards are but a snapshot and by the time parents see them, they are usually obsolete. Portfolios are a far more productive and meaningful way for students to express their growth as learners and for schools to communicate progress.

• discuss the steps to building successful portfolios: collection, selection, reflection, and connection. 
• learn to teach students what to collect and why, how to select their examples of learning, how to write reflectively about growth, and then connect the learning across contents.

About the Presenter

Starr Sackstein has been an educator since the early 2000s and is currently an educational consultant with the Core Collaborative, working with teams on assessment reform and bringing student voice to the front of all classroom learning.

Starr received national board certification in 2012 and was recognized as an outstanding educator that year by Education Update.  She is also a Certified Masters Journalism Educator through the Journalism Education Association (JEA) and served as the New York State director for JEA.  In 2016 she was named an ASCD Emerging Leader and had the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk called A Recovering Perfectionist’s Journey to Give Up Grades.

She is the author of several articles and books including “Hacking Assessment”, as well as blogged on Education Week Teacher at “Work in Progress” where she discussed all aspects of being a teacher and education reform for five years ending in 2019. 

In recent years, Sackstein has spoken internationally in Canada, Dubai, and South Korea on a variety of topics from assessment reform to technology-enhanced language instruction.

Starr can be reached at mssackstein@gmail.com or via Twitter at @MsSackstein. She can also be found at MsSackstein.com.

Registration Fee: 

Entire Series: 

•  $100 for NHASCD Members; $125 for non-members

Individual Sessions:  

•  $50 for NHASCD Members; $65 for non-members

REGISTER HERE