Ohio

Back from four days in classrooms learning – i.e. filming – about kids learning. It's one of the new things in education – formative assessment – and I was skeptical if it was just the latest thing or something. Turns out it really is something and really turned my head when I saw it work.

The best case was a fourth grade (I think it was fourth grade, but it all went into one, after a number of classes) math class in wich the kids were just cooking along in some formative exercises. The formative part is the kids and teacher assessing what they know. It's meant to be a quick snapshot which then moves into pushing the boundary of what the kid's know.

Very cool stuff and shows me how far the classroom can go in a short time.

The great fringe benefit of the job is that I got to stay with my sister, Nancy who had just moved to Columbus with her husband, Rich. They were in the center of all the school's we visited, and only two blocks from a real town center. Not a strip mall, but a real place. Glad to see we've still got some of those real places around the country.