SPARK Community Update
NWEA’s SPARK Community, an online community for educators, has introduced a new theme this month: Growth vs. Grade. Through discussions, blogs and resources, this topic will explore the differences, impacts and applications of measuring students on their individual growth versus only their academic grade.
New in the SPARK Community
Some of the featured contributions include:
- RIT 101: a blog and video that explains the RIT Scales; offered by our Senior Research Fellow, Gage Kingsburry.
- A blog on Interpreting NWEA Growth Norms by Michael Dahlin, one of NWEA's researchers
- Educational Restoration, from Damen Lopez, an educator who founded the No Excuses University program
- A new series of lesson plans for "Numbers and Operations" in the resource section
- Two case studies in “Share Your MAP Story”: one about how a large, diverse school district in San Diego is utilizing MAP and another about the partnership between NWEA and the No Excuses University Network
Later on this month, we will feature part two of the RIT Scale videos, RIT 201, as well as introduce a discussion on flexible grouping techniques, approaches and implementation methods.
Past Discussions Still Online
We had some great discussion the last few weeks looking at the Roles in Education, including the Role of Government in Education, the Next Generation of Assessments and using Social Media in Education. These features are still available for you to view in the community at any time by going to the discussions page and selecting from the menu of blog topics.
SPARK Continues to Grow – Be a Part of the Community
The SPARK Community continues to grow, with currently more than 1600 members from the educational community. If you haven’t already, register now to become a member of SPARK and join in the discussion.