Summer Reading List

The final books from my summer reading list arrived.  Can you guess that assessment is a HUGE focus of mine right now?  I was never really challenged to think about it too much before this past year and now I just love reading, learning, and thinking about assessment.  So excited for the good changes I'll be able to make next year due to these awesome resources!

My Summer Reading List!

Here they are:

• Classroom Assessment for Student Learning (2nd Edition) by Chappuis, Stiggins, Chappuis, and Arter (Copyright 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc.)
  This is the book (well the first edition I think) that teachers at my school used to guide them toward SBG.  They studied it as part of PD for several years (all before I started there), so I figured I should pick it up and start working through it.  I read bits and pieces here and there over the school year, but haven't done much with it since summer started.
• Embedded Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam (Copyright 2011 by Solution Tree Press).
  I heard about this book first by reading tweets about #efamath.  I was so frustrated that I didn't know what efa stood for that I looked it up and then really wanted it since I've been doing a lot of reading, learning, and thinking about assessment, but felt really lacking on formative assessment info.  I just got it today, so I have not yet started, but plan on lurking at #efamath chat tonight :)
• Fair Isn't Always Equal by Rick Wormeli (Copyright 2006 by Rick Wormeli).
  Rick Wormeli is the second name I heard associated with SBG (after Stiggins since our school was reading the previous book).  I think I got the idea to read this from #sbgchat, and after watching some of his videos, I knew I needed to buy it.  I got it sometime during second semester and got through the first few chapters before the end of school.  I would say I'm about halfway through at this point.  (When Nathan Wear visited our Algebra Project he recommended this book and I felt super awesome because I had already been reading it!)
• How to Grade for Learning (3rd Edition) by Ken O'Connor (Copyright 2009 by Corwin).
  This is the book that we were required to have for our Algebra Project.  Lots of good examples and recommendations of where to find other good examples in here.  Not as dense of a reading as Wormeli, but I also feel like the goal is to pursuade you to do SBG and I'm already pursuayed.  In that way I feel like it is a little less beneficial for me.  But if you are like, "Still not sure why I would do that" then it would be the perfect read for you.
• Understanding by Design (2nd Edition) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (Copyright 2005 by ASCD).
  I was given only standards when I started this year, and feel really unprepared to begin developing serious curriculum.  This UbD concept makes a lot of sense to me, but what I've learned through the grapevine wasn't enough, so I bought the book.  This is the other that just arrived today, so haven't started it yet, but hoping it will spur on some of the places I feel lacking with the curriculum writing.  (If I just had manageable units I could really get to work, but trying to put the standards into manageable units is hard.)

Wow, sorry!  I thought this would be a shorter post, but I still wrote a lot.  Enjoy!

Leave a comment if it works--been having some issues lately :(--otherwise you can tweet me @kathrynfreed  I would love to hear what you are reading and/or what you think of the books I'm reading!

--Kathryn