Manzana has been working closely with several leading high schools in the adoption of CPS response solutions in selected areas. A key difference of this solution compared to others available from response system vendors, is the emphasis on a very close integration of the technology with changes in teaching practice.
Effectively used, class response solutions enable a classroom culture which insists on the full participation of every student continuously through the learning activity. Teachers and students both benefit from the continuous feedback based learning, encased within a highly motivational framework where students are continuously challenged to demonstrate understanding and to extend it.
All too often however, we have observed that response solutions are embraced by schools as an occasionally used device to provide entertainment or collect opinions (“voting systems”), rather than as an enabling technology essential to formative assessment. Because the tools are used infrequently, in isolation, and without the investment of staff time to evolve effective practices, these schools do not achieve the learning outcomes promised by the technology.
The Manzana CAP (Classroom Achievement Plan) PD program delivered to our CPS pioneer schools is outstanding in its emphasis on embedding practice change early in the classroom experience, so that schools can quickly demonstrate benefits from the promise of real-time formative assessment. Included in the program are such heady issues as effective questioning techniques, based on leading education research, and teacher strategies associated with managing and responding to continuous feedback.
Feel free to inquire about joining our CAP program or about adopting CPS.