After all, what teacher wouldn't want to address and alleviate deficiencies as early in the process as possible? It is a great satisfaction as a teacher to develop instructional strategies based on the individual needs of students and to have the feedback that shows me the efficacy of my strategies. I think that everyone would like - and can benefit from - immediate, relevant, useful and confidence-building feedback.

"Capturing" student knowledge

Using an assessment strategy at the beginning of our school year helps identify prior knowledge, and can be delivered in a myriad of ways. A great way to capture prior knowledge is to develop a few questions for students to answer during the first week of school. The answers can be added to a student journal for 1:1 discussions. A few other choices include; questions, short multiple choice quiz, assignment of an online activity or quiz, whole group and small group activities with observation.

Let's focus on strengths

When assessments help us identify students who are functioning well below grade level, we tend to focus on their deficits and off-to remediation. However, when we acknowledge the deficit and build a relationship with the student to determine their interests, we can then develop instruction around the student's strengths which will, then, likely help the student to succeed. When we introduce their interests into the instruction we can more easily introduce increasingly difficult concepts and skills. We understand that today's learner has to believe that education is important and personal to them. That is when teaching and learning truly blossom.

A mantra for proactive assessment and instruction

• Connect with your students
• Use assessment results to deliver Intervention (correlate to their interests)
• Gain understanding of their prior knowledge and skills
• Pre-teach vocabulary (across curricula)
• Scaffold instruction (online, small / whole group, projects, and activities)