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Every teacher needs a toolbox for building solid academic skills, critical thinking, and content-area understanding. Collins teachers have three power tools at their disposal to build active cognitive engagement and use writing to help clarify thinking and convey ideas. Writing Summary In this structured assignment, students read content-based nonfiction texts or articles (typically around 500-1000 words depending on reading level) and use the Ten Percent Summary Focus Sheet

Our recent work in PBL and CTE classrooms has caused us to think about, and reassess, what makes meaningful assessment. Research suggests that meaningful assessment should: Steer teaching and learning as a process - not an end point - with short, middle, and long cycles. ( Fisher and Frye ) Ensure that students genuinely understand material and cannot succeed by accident (like some multiple choice, T/F, matching, etc.) — they should be virtually "un-cheatable." ( Hernandez )