Illuminate Blog
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Formative Assessment: What Is It and Why Use It
Formative assessment is widely used in schools. However, there are multiple definitions of this term. There can also be confusion around whether formative assessment is a process or a product.…
SEL Competencies: What They Are, Why They Matter, and How to Develop Them with Students
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has identified five areas of social-emotional learning (SEL) competence that support students’ development and well-being-known as the CASEL framework. These five…
What is Item Analysis?
Item analysis is analyzing individual items to make sure that their difficulty level is appropriate, that they discriminate well between students of different performance levels, and then looking deeper into…
Promoting Resilience and Social-Emotional Well-Being Among Educators: Organizational and Individual Strategies for Mitigating Stress and Trauma
It is still too soon to fully understand the impact of the pandemic on K-12 education and educators. Teaching has always been, and still is, a highly challenging and stressful…
Creating an Effective Behavior Intervention Plan: Tips & Free Templates
What is a Behavior Intervention Plan? A behavior intervention plan is a document and workflow tool that drives collaborative, data-informed decision making around identifying students’ social-emotional behavior (SEB) needs and…
Texas HB 4545 FAQ: What It Means and How to Position Your District for Success
Effective as of June 16, 2021, Texas House Bill (HB) 4545 sets new requirements for students who do not receive a passing grade on the State of Texas Assessments of…
Understanding Depth of Knowledge
Alignment between standards or unpacked learning targets during assessment creation and instructional planning is crucial for developing a year long Curricular/Assessment Scope and Sequence. Depth of Knowledge (DOK) is the…
Using Data to Align a Behavior Intervention to a Target Behavior
With strong Tier 1 supports in place, educators are able to turn their attention to the students in need of a targeted or individualized behavior intervention. But with limited time…
Evaluating Your Overall Intervention Program’s Effectiveness
As we implement MTSS, it’s really important that we take a look at which kids are receiving interventions, and being able to answer the question: “Is what we’re doing working?” …
Free eBooks for Educators
As the school year unfolds, districts are relying on their high-quality assessment tools and multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) to better understand where students are and how to help each…