Take a Peek into My Current Project

Many of you are already familiar with this little book I wrote more than 10 years ago. So many folks have told me it's been helpful, and I'm grateful for that. This work is essential for learners, which is why I'm excited to share that I'm working on a second, updated rewrite based on my learning for the last decade.

Here's a peek into the message I'm sharing with readers at the beginning:

"More than 11 years ago, I wrote Teaching Students to Self-Assess in a frenzy over spring break. I had been in the classroom for about 9 years and had just finished the National Board Certification process (an experience I highly recommend to any educator interested in developing their own practice). Having spent time really reflecting on my own pedagogy, I recognized an opportunity that I was missing in my classroom - student metacognitive dialogue about their learning experiences. After recognizing how much I learned from my own reflective process, I felt it was a disservice to my students not to give them greater voice in their own learning. 

Since learning is not visible to the naked eye, we must give learners the vocabulary they need to adequately and accurately portray what we can’t always see. This makes assessing learning challenging, since we can only see what we ask students to show us. When our designed assessments aren’t as effective as we believe, we make assumptions about student learning that may or may not be true. It isn’t unreasonable to think that we’ve created fully aligned and thoughtful learning experiences that allow students to demonstrate what they know and can do. But what if they aren’t achieving that goal? Offering students the opportunity to share what they learned in a way that worked for them, in addition to the assessments, allowed for richer conversations about the depth of learning happening, and it helped me get better at designing assessments that truly did what I wanted them to do.

Although I am no longer in my own classroom, I mentor new teachers, provide professional learning on all things assessment, and work with teams and leadership as a coach to build strong instructional support. I say this because metacognition is at the heart of all of this work, as is assessment. Giving young learners the tools to understand and advocate for themselves as learners is essential to their success in life. When we talk about durable skills, metacognition is part of most Portrait of a Learner competencies (and it should be), because the better we know and can articulate what we know, and then ask for what we need, the more effective our learning is. It is with this in mind that I wanted to spend some more time with a little book I wrote a long time ago. 

I hope you find this book helpful, as I have listened to feedback from earlier readers, and that what you learn supports the success of all the young people you work with."

What are you hoping this book offers? Since I've taken the feedback from earlier, I'm going to make sure that the learning is actionable immediately, offering practical advice, activities, and strategies as well as examples from a variety of disciplines, grades 6-12.

Please let me know if you'd be interested in being a part of my launch team - you can email me directly at mssackstein@gmail.com to get involved. I'll be keeping you apprised of my progress until the launch in early 2027. Can't wait to hear your thoughts.