The Edwin Teaching and Learning Group at ESE have published an update on the ET&L pilot project, including information about current and future pilot opportunities (for RTTT districts), content updates, and online resources.
The update document can be found under "News and Updates" on the Edwin page on the ESE site.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/edwin/
Showing posts with label RTTT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RTTT. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Resource Round-Up
Wow...what a busy time of year! There is lots of great information on data, assessment, and educator effectiveness related topics coming our way...here are some of the latest resources that you may find valuable:
PARCC Release of Assessment Blueprints and Test Specifications: PARCC has released a set of test specification documents, including assessment blueprints and evidence statement tables, to help educators and the general public better understand the design of the PARCC assessments.
EWIS Implementation Support Pilot: ESE is looking to select approximately six districts to receive regular on-site technical assistance, facilitation, and training to support their use of the Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) data in the 2013-14 school year. Applications are due on Friday, May 31st.
New Educator Evaluation QRG: Data Collection provides information about the data elements that districts will report as part of EPIMS related to the educator evaluation system.
ESE Newsletters and Update Pages:
Student Assessment Updates (latest update: 4/22)
Educator Evaluation E-Newsletter (latest version: April 2013)
RTTT Newsletter (latest version: Spring 2013)
Upcoming Webinars:
ACCESS for ELLs Score Reporting - May 23, 28, or 29
Assessment Literacy Webinar Series - Archives of Sessions 1-3 (Session 4 will be in July)
PARCC Release of Assessment Blueprints and Test Specifications: PARCC has released a set of test specification documents, including assessment blueprints and evidence statement tables, to help educators and the general public better understand the design of the PARCC assessments.
EWIS Implementation Support Pilot: ESE is looking to select approximately six districts to receive regular on-site technical assistance, facilitation, and training to support their use of the Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) data in the 2013-14 school year. Applications are due on Friday, May 31st.
New Educator Evaluation QRG: Data Collection provides information about the data elements that districts will report as part of EPIMS related to the educator evaluation system.
ESE Newsletters and Update Pages:
Student Assessment Updates (latest update: 4/22)
Educator Evaluation E-Newsletter (latest version: April 2013)
RTTT Newsletter (latest version: Spring 2013)
Upcoming Webinars:
ACCESS for ELLs Score Reporting - May 23, 28, or 29
Assessment Literacy Webinar Series - Archives of Sessions 1-3 (Session 4 will be in July)
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
More About Our New Friend Edwin
Edwin is certainly a popular guy these days -- he's everywhere!As you know by now, "Edwin" (which is not an acronym, by the way) is the name of Massachusetts' comprehensive integrated suite of tools and resources to help educators at every level to improve teaching and learning. Edwin has two main parts:
Edwin Analytics will be a suite of analysis tools, including the Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS), college and career readiness reports, and the Education Data Warehouse,
all available through the security portal. Today was the first of several Webinars which focused on this portion of Edwin - additional Webinars have been scheduled in order to accommodate all the folks interested in learning more! We will start seeing new reports and Edwin interface changes within the security portal toward the end of the month. All districts will have access to Edwin Analytics through the security portal.Edwin Teaching and Learning will provide online curriculum and assessment tools for educators aligned to the 2011 MA Curriculum Frameworks in English Language Arts and Literacy and Mathematics,
which incorporate the Common Core State Standards. Yesterday I had the opportunity to join the pilot districts to learn more about the Thinkgate system upon which Edwin Teaching and Learning will be built. I was very impressed by the curriculum and assessment tools it offers! You can see a quick demo of the system and learn more about upcoming Webinars related specifically to Edwin Teaching and Learning at http://thinkgate.net/ohma/. Edwin Teaching and Learning will first be implemented in districts that are part of RTTT (projects 5A-5E plus project 3A.)For additional information on Edwin, please continue to visit http://www.doe.mass.edu/edwin/.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Coming soon -- Edwin!
Happy New Year! Most of you have heard that ESE will soon be releasing Edwin, an "integrated suite of cutting-edge tools and resources to promote best practices in classroom instruction and assessments." Edwin will have two major components: Edwin Analytics and Edwin Teaching and Learning.
Edwin Analytics will be a suite of analysis tools, including the Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS), college and career readiness reports, and the Education Data Warehouse, all available through the security portal. According to the information provided on this week's EDW conference call, we should start to see minor branding and interface changes to the EDW/portal within the next month, with some more major user interface changes and additional tools in the spring (eventually with teacher-level access to reports!)
Edwin Teaching & Learning will provide online curriculum and assessment tools for educators aligned to the 2011 MA Curriculum Frameworks in English Language Arts and Literacy and Mathematics, which incorporate the Common Core State Standards. Massachusetts is working toward procuring an instructional improvement system (IIS) with Ohio and we look forward to hearing the vendor selection in the near future.
Opportunities to pilot new Edwin resources as they are developed will be provided to districts who have been participating in identifying requirements for the system as well as those who have identified project 5a (Teaching and Learning System) in their RTTT applications. For more information, please contact edwin@doe.mass.edu.
Stay tuned for additional information on the launch of Edwin in the coming weeks. For additional information about Edwin, including an extensive FAQ, visit http://www.doe.mass.edu/edwin/.
Edwin Analytics will be a suite of analysis tools, including the Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS), college and career readiness reports, and the Education Data Warehouse, all available through the security portal. According to the information provided on this week's EDW conference call, we should start to see minor branding and interface changes to the EDW/portal within the next month, with some more major user interface changes and additional tools in the spring (eventually with teacher-level access to reports!)
Edwin Teaching & Learning will provide online curriculum and assessment tools for educators aligned to the 2011 MA Curriculum Frameworks in English Language Arts and Literacy and Mathematics, which incorporate the Common Core State Standards. Massachusetts is working toward procuring an instructional improvement system (IIS) with Ohio and we look forward to hearing the vendor selection in the near future.
Opportunities to pilot new Edwin resources as they are developed will be provided to districts who have been participating in identifying requirements for the system as well as those who have identified project 5a (Teaching and Learning System) in their RTTT applications. For more information, please contact edwin@doe.mass.edu.
Stay tuned for additional information on the launch of Edwin in the coming weeks. For additional information about Edwin, including an extensive FAQ, visit http://www.doe.mass.edu/edwin/.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The 2012 TELL Mass Survey
The 2012 TELL Mass (Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning in
Massachusetts) survey will collect valuable feedback from educators on
key educational issues including available time, facilities, resources,
community engagement and support, instructional practices and more.
The survey is funded through DESE's Race to the Top (RTTT) grant and is a required project for all RTTT districts.
The online survey is being administered starting today through Friday, April 6, 2012. The survey is confidential and anonymous, and takes approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. Educators can use a unique, anonymous access code provided to schools to complete the survey. The survey, along with up-to-the-minute response rates by district, is available online at www.tellmass.org.
The online survey is being administered starting today through Friday, April 6, 2012. The survey is confidential and anonymous, and takes approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. Educators can use a unique, anonymous access code provided to schools to complete the survey. The survey, along with up-to-the-minute response rates by district, is available online at www.tellmass.org.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Commissioner's Update: February 16, 2012
An update from the Commissioner is now available on the ESE Web site. Topics include the Model System for Educator Evaluation, the TELL Mass survey, DART Detail: ELLs, a Race to the Top Newsletter, EPP plans and spring 2012 assessments, and more. There sure is a lot happening in Massachusetts schools!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
MassCUE Conference Happenings
Wednesday I attended Day 1 of the 2011 MassCUE conference at Gillette Stadium, and it was exciting as usual! Lots of great presenters, vendors, and opportunities to share ideas with colleagues made for a productive and engaging day.
The Spotlight Session entitled, "MA New Educator Evaluation Regulations: Opportunity and Challenges" presented by Karla Brooks Baehr provided an opportunity to learn more about the details in the developing story of the new educator evaluation regulations (with specific discussions about positions such as technology integration specialists that work with both staff and students). Two major takeaways from this session were that (1) both teachers and administrators should be taking time to become VERY familiar with the state's growth model, since this is one of the measures that will be used (where applicable) for educator evaluation; and (2) the Commonwealth's Model System is on target to be available for review on January 10, 2012. A variety of resources, including a version of the PowerPoint that was presented at the conference, are available on the ESE's Educator Evaluation web page.
Associate Commissioner Bob Bickerton and Director of Information Services Rob Curtin presented "Next Generation Supports for Teaching, Learning, and Student Success" which highlighted a variety of initiatives within ESE, including the new Curriculum Frameworks, PARCC, and many RTTT projects, especially the Teaching and Learning System which is currently under discussion. The ESE Showcase area provided an opportunity for conference attendees to learn more about initatives including the Education Data Warehouse, Thinkfinity Partnership, PBS LearningMedia Partnership, and the Teaching and Learning System.
The final session of the day entitled, "The Paperless Classroom: Tips and Tricks for the 21st Century Educator" was fascinating and introduced attendees to a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools I had not seen before. While these tools are not data-specific, I'd like to share some them here for those of you with an interest in staying current with educational technology. The presenter, Melissa Panchuck from the Fessenden School, was incredibly passionate and engaging about her use of Web 2.0 tools with her 5th grade students, including:
The Spotlight Session entitled, "MA New Educator Evaluation Regulations: Opportunity and Challenges" presented by Karla Brooks Baehr provided an opportunity to learn more about the details in the developing story of the new educator evaluation regulations (with specific discussions about positions such as technology integration specialists that work with both staff and students). Two major takeaways from this session were that (1) both teachers and administrators should be taking time to become VERY familiar with the state's growth model, since this is one of the measures that will be used (where applicable) for educator evaluation; and (2) the Commonwealth's Model System is on target to be available for review on January 10, 2012. A variety of resources, including a version of the PowerPoint that was presented at the conference, are available on the ESE's Educator Evaluation web page.
Associate Commissioner Bob Bickerton and Director of Information Services Rob Curtin presented "Next Generation Supports for Teaching, Learning, and Student Success" which highlighted a variety of initiatives within ESE, including the new Curriculum Frameworks, PARCC, and many RTTT projects, especially the Teaching and Learning System which is currently under discussion. The ESE Showcase area provided an opportunity for conference attendees to learn more about initatives including the Education Data Warehouse, Thinkfinity Partnership, PBS LearningMedia Partnership, and the Teaching and Learning System.
The final session of the day entitled, "The Paperless Classroom: Tips and Tricks for the 21st Century Educator" was fascinating and introduced attendees to a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools I had not seen before. While these tools are not data-specific, I'd like to share some them here for those of you with an interest in staying current with educational technology. The presenter, Melissa Panchuck from the Fessenden School, was incredibly passionate and engaging about her use of Web 2.0 tools with her 5th grade students, including:
- Glogster - virtual posters
- Google Sketchup -
- Pixton - online comics
- Blabberize - talking pictures
- Go!Animate and XtraNormal - animations
- Screenr - instant screencasts
- diigo - link collections and highlighting
- issuu - digital publishing
So many new and exciting tools (both inside and outside the classroom!) that can be used to improve teaching and learning!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Massachusetts Teaching and Learning System
Last week's Commissioner's Update shared information about a RTTT project focused on the development of a comprehensive teaching and learning system that will provide educators an integrated suite of tools and resources, including:
- data dashboards and reports,
- an expanded early warning indicator system,
- a "test builder" for formative and interim assessments,
- model curriculum units and lesson plans, and
- compelling multi-media and print resources to support instructional lesson design and delivery.
The folks at ESE are seeking input and feedback from school and district representatives as they develop this system over the next few years, which has a major focus on timely and easy-to-access information that can be used to improve teaching and learning.. Please visit the Teaching and Learning System page on the ESE Web site for further details and information about how you can get involved.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Data News from MassCUE
I attended one day of the fabulous MassCUE conference at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday 10/28, and wanted to share some of the things I learned. I will come back and post links to the session resources here once they are up on the MassCUE Web site.
I attended a session entitled, "Formative Assessment using Google Apps," presented by the Harwich Public Schools. They have used Google Forms to easily create online quizzes to check student understanding...with instant results tallied to a Google spreadsheet! I have used Google Forms for surveys and the like (similar to Zoomerang and Survey Monkey, but free and unlimited, with data automatically collected in a back end spreadsheet) but it was interesting to see it used to check student understanding and used immediately to inform instruction.
Jeff Comenitz from the ESE's Data Warehouse team had a plethora of information about the DART tool, the growth model, the SIF project, and the new Student Course Schedule (SCS) data collection. (Of course, if you're a follower of this blog, none of these topics are new to you!) He shared some sample teacher-level Data Warehouse reports which are being developed for next fall, once the teacher and student data are connected in the Data Warehouse.
Associate Commissioner Bob Bickerton spoke on "Using Data and New Tools for Decision Making and Continuous Improvement." He highlighted not only the various data collection initiatives (SIMS, EPIMS, SCS, SIF) but also plans for the RTTT-funded "teaching and learning system." He acknowledged the performance challenges that the Data Warehouse is currently encountering, and described how the SLDS grant funds are being used in part to re-architect the Data Warehouse to improve performance and support wider use of the tool.
I spoke with many of the student information system vendors as well as some vendors offering data management tools. I would like to better understand the capabilities of the various systems to handle local data, so that I can help districts in our region understand what options are available to them based on the tools that they may already have in place.
We did get to hear from Jonathan Kraft at lunchtime, however, rain prevented the Patriots from taking the practice field so, sadly, I don't have any Tom Brady sightings to report.
I attended a session entitled, "Formative Assessment using Google Apps," presented by the Harwich Public Schools. They have used Google Forms to easily create online quizzes to check student understanding...with instant results tallied to a Google spreadsheet! I have used Google Forms for surveys and the like (similar to Zoomerang and Survey Monkey, but free and unlimited, with data automatically collected in a back end spreadsheet) but it was interesting to see it used to check student understanding and used immediately to inform instruction.
Jeff Comenitz from the ESE's Data Warehouse team had a plethora of information about the DART tool, the growth model, the SIF project, and the new Student Course Schedule (SCS) data collection. (Of course, if you're a follower of this blog, none of these topics are new to you!) He shared some sample teacher-level Data Warehouse reports which are being developed for next fall, once the teacher and student data are connected in the Data Warehouse.
Associate Commissioner Bob Bickerton spoke on "Using Data and New Tools for Decision Making and Continuous Improvement." He highlighted not only the various data collection initiatives (SIMS, EPIMS, SCS, SIF) but also plans for the RTTT-funded "teaching and learning system." He acknowledged the performance challenges that the Data Warehouse is currently encountering, and described how the SLDS grant funds are being used in part to re-architect the Data Warehouse to improve performance and support wider use of the tool.
I spoke with many of the student information system vendors as well as some vendors offering data management tools. I would like to better understand the capabilities of the various systems to handle local data, so that I can help districts in our region understand what options are available to them based on the tools that they may already have in place.
We did get to hear from Jonathan Kraft at lunchtime, however, rain prevented the Patriots from taking the practice field so, sadly, I don't have any Tom Brady sightings to report.
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