A noteworthy trend in many schools today is that they are regularly using assessments prior to teaching (either pre-tests or marking rubrics) to ascertain what students know/can do, what misconceptions they have, and identify the point of readiness for learning of each student. However, too often the data obtained from such pre-assessments is not informative enough to truly facilitate differentiated teaching.

Whether you are a current SPAmarkbook user or not, this hands-on, practical workshop is designed to:

• show teachers how to write clear, unambiguous test items and rubrics that can be used to inform teaching,
• demonstrate how to better interpret the results from pre-assessments so that teachers can meet the individual learning needs of their students, and
• demonstrate the use of pre- and post-assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching.