To:

Members, Board of Education

From:

Maurice O. Green, Superintendent
Beth Folger, Chief Academic Officer
Mack McCary, Instructional Improvement Officer for Education Alliances

Date:

May 22, 2009

RE:

Assessment for Learning Pilot

Since November 2008, teachers and principals at nine schools have participated in an Assessment for Learning pilot supported by the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS).  The purpose of the pilot is to promote the development and use of formative assessments and grading practices to diagnose student understanding, clarify NC Standard Course of Study objectives for students, differentiate tutoring and instruction, increase opportunities for students to receive formative feedback and improve mastery of standards as well as their grades, empower students to analyze and use assessments, and enable “singleton” (no one teaching the same course in their school) teachers to collaborate in a virtual professional learning community with a partner teaching the same course at another school.

Participating schools are:

• Andrews High
• Greensboro College Middle College
• GTCC Middle College – High Point
• Northern High
• Ragsdale High
• The Academy at Central
• The Academy at Smith
• The Middle College at Bennett
• The Middle College at NC A&T

Each of the participating schools has attended two half-day training and dissemination sessions.  Further training has been designed that is customized to the school and delivered on-site for the school.  For collaboration and sharing among the participating schools, NCVPS has furnished web-based collaboration tools, training and support to promote a virtual learning community.  These resources include:

• a Blackboard website providing resources that are custom-designed to enable participants to share lessons learned,
• workspace for virtual partner teachers to collaborate with someone teaching the same course at another school,
• Wimba classroom, a virtual conferencing site, to conduct live audio conferences with support for Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and video, and
• bi-monthly electronic learning community (e-LC) virtual conferencing and book study among the nine NCVPS pilot districts.

The pilot project will continue through Fall 2009, and participants are still learning and exploring how to collaborate virtually and share resources. 

At the Board of Education meeting of May 28, 2009, Mack McCary will lead a demonstration that illustrates two developments with powerful implications for future learning. 

1. A recorded archive of a collaborative Wimba classroom sharing session among three principals, Esther Coble (The Middle College at Bennett), Eric Hines (The Middle College at NC A&T) and Garriot Rose (The Academy at Central), who discussed progress in using Assessment for Learning practices, illustrating the feasibility of virtual meetings.  The three principals will log in using Wimba during the presentation to comment on their experience.
2. A recorded archive of students teaching students using Wimba classroom.  Students in Justin Crompton’s Computer Applications II class at The Academy at Central have been teaching students in Jacqueline Mingo’s Computer Applications I class at The Middle College at Bennett.  Mr. Crompton and one of his students will join the meeting through Wimba to comment on their experience with this innovation.

The partnership with NCVPS has enabled principals and teachers at the nine pilot schools to begin exploring ways to collaborate in a virtual learning community that promotes Assessment for Learning practices.  Also, the GCS Technology Services is now offering Moodle (a free courseware comparable to Blackboard) and Wimba Classroom applications and training to interested schools and departments.