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October 2002

Welcome to Exemplary Initiatives online!

Exemplars is a community of users dedicated to helping schools become successful in standards-based performance assessment and instruction. Our monthly newsletter features short pieces from Exemplars users, as well as brief reflections on current education issues and trends that impact standards, assessment and instruction.

If you would like to contribute, or have comments you would like to share, please get in touch with us at info@exemplars.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

In This Issue:

Scaffolding Workshops Lead to Success
Exemplars and Co-nect Sign Three Year Agreement
Exemplars - The Leader in Standards-Based Performance Assessment and Instruction for 10 Years

Scaffolding Workshops Lead to Success

According to Tim McNamara, an Exemplars workshop leader, Eldorado, IL is, "home to some of the kindest, friendliest people you'd ever want to meet." Eldorado's economy once relied on coal mining. The mine has since closed and the community has fallen on hard economic times. The opportunities for good jobs once available to graduates have been lost. Knowing that Eldorado graduates would be entering a much different job market, middle school principal Rick Cox developed a strategy for improving the quality of their math program.

Mr. Cox contacted Exemplars in the Fall of 2000. Tim began assisting the Eldorado Middle School with the implementation of Exemplars to improve their students' math performance levels. The strategy included instituting Exemplars for both assessment and instruction, and providing teachers with professional development. He used an Illinois State Grant to fund the program.

Mr. Cox believes the strategy was successful. "In 1999, only 28% of our 8th grade students met or exceeded state standards." After the introduction of Exemplars, "In 2001, 56% of our 8th grade students met or exceeded the standards. In other words, we doubled the number of students passing the state test in the two-year time period."

Over the course of one academic year, Tim led three workshops with Eldorado teachers. The first focused on assessment, the second on content, and the third on instructional scope and sequence.

Workshop One
Teachers analyzed state assessment questions, compared them to Exemplars problems, discussed multiple strategies for solutions, rubrics, and assessing student work.

Workshop Two
Teachers designed end-of-the-year assessments for each grade level based on the state standards, including both skills-based and more comprehensive performance-based Exemplars questions.

Workshop Three
Teachers focused on laying out the curriculum for the entire school year using the state standards and Exemplars as benchmarks, with the textbook in a supporting role. Teachers used different colored index cards (one to represent a standard, one for a good class activity or web site, one for a skill-based question, and one for a performance-based question) and inserted them throughout the textbook, indicating where to place emphasis in their upcoming instruction and where to focus on assessment.

This scaffolding allowed each workshop to build on previous knowledge and gave teachers continuity as they implemented these changes. Rick Cox felt that these ongoing workshops made a tremendous difference for Eldorado's students.

Mr. Cox wanted to thank Exemplars for providing his students with such outstanding constructed-response items and for presenting his teachers with such extraordinary professional development. Back to top

Exemplars and Co-nect Sign Three Year Agreement

We are pleased to announce an agreement between Co-nect, a network of more than 200 schools in 30 states, working toward school improvement and higher student achievement.

Co-nect improves teaching and learning by providing effective professional development, tools, strategies, and support to K-12 educators. Collaborating with schools and districts, Co-nect strives to ensure an exceptional education for all students. The focus is on community accountability for results, learning by doing, and the sensible use of technology, building a foundation for both short- and long- term school improvement.

Co-nect was founded in 1992 in response to the call by the New American Schools Development Corporation to create "break the mold schools "that could be used to improve educational achievement for students nationwide.

Co-nect schools will have access to the library of Exemplars standards-based performance tasks in Math, Science and Reading, Writing, Research in the Content Areas. They will be able to search for performance tasks by standard or by concepts and skills, find the tasks they want and download them to their computers. Back to top

Exemplars - The Leader in Standards-Based Performance Assessment and Instruction for 10 Years

In the ten years since Exemplars pioneered the field of standards-based performance assessment and instruction by publishing the first issue of our K-8 Math Subscription in September 1993, we have grown to an organization whose materials are used by educators in 50 states and 20 countries.

Beginning with K-8 Math in 1993, Secondary Math was added two years later. At the request of many Exemplars users, we began Science Exemplars (K-8) in 1997. In 1999, Reading, Writing and Research (RWR) was published.

Why are we successful?

Exemplars is user-friendly for teachers. They can enter at their level of expertise and grow.

All material is standards-based.
The performance tasks are classroom tested and easily differentiated.
The rubrics are all standards based.
The benchmark papers are all annotated.