In this Strategy Guide, you'll learn about a number of specific methods that will promote self-assessment and contribute to a richer understanding of student learning.

Because of their diverse literacy needs, our students need us to differentiate the product, process and content of learning according to their learning style, interest and readiness. Yet, recognizing student growth and literacy needs requires more than one voice and more than one snapshot. Research has reminded us of the value of continued assessment and of students as partners in their own assessment. This heightened metacognition leads to increased engagement across content areas and remains a key characteristic of life-long learning. Motivation to learn increases when students are asked to critically analyze their own learning. And, if continued assessment informs instruction, students and teachers benefit from student feedback about what a student does and does not understand.

In this strategy guide, you will learn how to organize students and classroom topics to encourage a high degree of classroom participation and assist students in developing a conceptual understanding of a topic through the use of the Think-Pair-Share technique.

The Think-Pair-Share strategy is designed to differentiate instruction by providing students time and structure for thinking on a given topic, enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with a peer. This learning strategy promotes classroom participation by encouraging a high degree of pupil response, rather than using a basic recitation method in which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response. Additionally, this strategy provides an opportunity for all students to share their thinking with at least one other student which, in turn, increases their sense of involvement in classroom learning. Think-Pair-Share can also be used as in information assessment tool; as students discuss their ideas, the teacher can circulate and listen to the conversations taking place and respond accordingly.

In this strategy guide, you’ll learn how to use kidwatching to track and support student learning. Teachers observe and take notes on students’ understanding of skills and concepts and then use the observations to determine effective strategies for future instruction.

Yetta Goodman popularized the term kidwatching, the practice of “watching kids with a knowledgeable head” (9). In kidwatching, teachers observe students’ activities, noticing how they learn and what they do to explore their ideas. Teachers then examine anecdotal notes and other evidence to see how and when students engage in learning. After this review, teachers use their observations to differentiate activities to meet the needs of individual students. The strategy is based on “a seek-to-understand stance by attempting to look at life, literacy, and learning through the children’s eyes” (Mills 2). By discovering how students learn, teachers are able to choose the most effective strategies for each pupil.

In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers. Likewise, this strategy can be used to pair older students with younger students to create “reading buddies.” Additionally, children who read at the same level can be paired to reread a text that they have already read, for continued understanding and fluency work. This research-based strategy can be used with any book or text in a variety of content areas, and can be implemented in a variety of ways.

In this strategy guide, you’ll learn about Partner Talk—a way to provide students with another learning opportunity to make learning their own through collaboration and discussion. Partner Talk can be used for assessing classwork, making connections to prior knowledge, discussing vocabulary, or simplifying concepts.

One of the main goals of the English Language Arts Common Core Standards is to build natural collaboration and discussion strategies within students, helping to prepare them for higher levels of education and collaboration in the workforce. In today’s classrooms, students are using complex texts and are being asked to use a variety of strategies and provide evidence-based responses. Partner Talk is a best practice that gives students an active role in their learning and scaffold the experience for students.

In this strategy guide, you will learn how to organize students and texts to allow for learning that meets the diverse needs of students but keeps student groups flexible.

The research that originally gave credibility to the jigsaw approach—creating heterogeneous groups of students, diving them into new groups to become expert on a topic, and then returning them to their home groups—touted its value as a means of creating positive interdependence in the classroom and improving students’ attitudes toward school and each other.

This lesson is divided into two student readings. The first reading compares the scope of the present student debt crisis with the past and discusses what has changed. The second reading explores some proposals for dealing with the student debt crisis. Discussion questions aimed at getting students to think critically about the student debt problem and its possible solutions follow each reading.

This visualization is an interactive Energy System Map, which includes short write-ups introducing students to fundamental energy system topics, paired with animated videos and deep dive resources.

This short video features the Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network (ALISON project), a citizen science program in which 4th and 5th graders help scientists study the relationship between climate change and lake ice and snow conditions.

In this video segment, two students discuss the greenhouse effect and visit with research scientists at Biosphere 2 in Arizona, who research the effects of global climate change on organisms in a controlled facility. Their current research (as of 2002) focuses on the response to increased quantities of CO2 in a number of different model ecosystems.

Stunner, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.

This Western Mining History database uses Mineral Resources Data System to list known Colorado historical mines by county. Each county site has links to the known mines within its borders. Some are known and named, others are unnamed. Mines should be assumed to be on private property unless other research is conducted. Data provided for each mine site include: Name, State, County, Elevation, Primary Mineral Mined, Latitude and Longitude and a link to Google Maps. Photos are provided where available. Additional information for some Mines are satellite photos, and ownership, business and historical records. Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a great database for student historical research or data and statistics classes. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.

Summitville, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.

Western Mining History presents a short history of a dredging unit from Sumpter Valley used during the Gold Rush. The dredge was a mining technology brought into use after 1890. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides databases, information on mining, mining towns, gold and Photos and maps of the western United States. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.

These videos capture how the sun warms the Earth with support materials for teachers and students. Students will make observations to use as evidence that sunlight warms Earth's surface.

Sunset, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.

Sunshine, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.

After reading a story about a supermarket, students examine the change in supermarket jobs due to the advances in technology. Students observe two demonstrations. One simulates the checkout process at a grocery store using a cash register, and the other uses scanners that are in stores today. Students conclude which method is faster and more accurate and why.

An interactive applet and associated web page that demonstrate supplementary angles (two angles that add to 180 degrees.) The applet shows two angles which, while not adjacent, are drawn to strongly suggest visually that they add to a straight angle. Any point defining the angle scan be dragged, and as you do so, the other angle changes to remain supplementary to the one you change. Applet can be enlarged to full screen size for use with a classroom projector. This resource is a component of the Math Open Reference Interactive Geometry textbook project at http://www.mathopenref.com.

I attempted to base the reading for my Software Engineering course on freely available papers and postings. In areas where I could not find documents with the coverage I wanted, I wrote my own monographs. This is a collection of those monographs.