MAPS

"Look where you're going instead of where you've been and you'll quit running into stuff."

Jodi Turner's dad told her when she played softball as a kid. Today is a day when we're looking where we're going. It's a late start day that most of the teachers are using to get "MAPS" training. MAPS is a computerized assessment program that we're beginning to use for students in the 2nd grade through high school. It adapts to the students level, offering easier questions when a student misses items and more difficult questions when a student is correct. The beauty of the program is that we can get results for students that tell us where we should be going and who else in our class needs the same skills taught so that we have the knowledge needed to figure out how to group for effective instruction without "tracking". The down-side is, this is a powerful, complicated system that is going to take us awhile to figure out how to use, and even longer to use efficiently and effectively. And we're all so busy teaching day to day that we don't have a lot of time learn how to use this new tool to "look where we're going". So....... today we have been given a few hours to do just that.