4-Minute Quiz Measures Schools' Learning Relationships
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 03/18/21
A national
nonprofit has developed a way to assess how well a school is
supporting the student-teacher-family relationship. The new "School
Checkup" quiz was created
by PowerMyLearning, an organization that works on issues
related to educational equity and accelerating students'
social-emotional learning and academic achievement.
The School Checkup
evaluates the strength of student-teacher-family relationships in
four areas: the learning environment, instructional planning and
delivery, data-driven decision-making and student agency. Each area
gets four questions in the quiz.
The quiz, which is entirely multiple
choice, takes about four minutes to go through. After participants
are done answering the questions and provide their contact
information, they receive immediate results along with links to
practical ideas for improving their learning relationships.
The practices
offered in the results are based in the organization's own Framework
for Teachers, an instructional guide intended to help
teachers implement culturally-responsive teaching and accelerate
students' SEL and learning.
"At
PowerMyLearning, our key insight is that students succeed when they
have strong learning relationships with both their teachers and their
families. Picture a triangle comprised of students, teachers and
families with teachers and families reinforcing what each other is
doing around curriculum," said CEO and Co-founder Elisabeth
Stock, in a statement. "In the midst of a pandemic and
nationwide racial reckoning, this triangle approach has never been
more important. The School Checkup is a great resource to help school
leaders identify blind spots and begin to develop strategies for
bringing families into learning with compassion and purpose."
The quiz is openly
available on
the PowerMyLearning website.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.