The workshops held under the “Learning Schools” (LES) Program with participation of teachers from Belarus took place in the PAFF Representative Office in Warsaw on August 25-27. Fourteen Belarusian formative assessment e-course mentors came to Poland to improve their teachers’ and mentors’ qualifications and share their experiences.
The workshop training was conducted by the “Learning School” Program experts Joanna Soćko and Danuta Sterna. The main theme of the course were the strategies of formative assessment based not on traditional grades but on the feedback. As it is proved by international studies, formative assessment is a very effective system of improving students’ achievements. The participants of the workshops discussed the best practices of the “LES” Program, for example cooperation in discussing lessons, educational walk, monitoring of selected students and planning the lesson.
On the second day, Alena, one of the participants of the training workshops, conducted an object lesson applying the formative assessment (FA) principles. The lesson was on the Space pollution and excellently presented how to apply FA to work with students. The works made by the students during the lesson were next used to discuss a significant element of formative assessment which is the student work analysis.
“Belarusian teachers are very interested in everything we offer in formative assessment and apply eagerly our suggestions in their work with students,” emphasized Danuta Sterna, the expert from the Center for Citizenship Education.
The workshops for the teachers from Belarus were held thanks to the cooperation established between two programs carried out by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation: the “Learning Schools” (LES) aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning and the “Region in Transition” (RITA) aimed at sharing Polish experiences with the partners in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia countries.
