TfT Bulletin #15 | March 26, 2025

The Bulletin finds us in the Lenten season, when we remember Jesus’ time in the wilderness and prepare ourselves to celebrate the resurrection.

In Jan Richardson’s Circle of Grace—A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, she shares a “Blessing That Meets you in the Wilderness.” I pass these good words on to you.

Exit Tickets–Formative Assessment

We name formative assessment as an essential practice within TfT. And I have declared, on more than a few occasions, that in many ways, a TfT implementation journey is a formative assessment journey. From clear learning targets to self assessment and reflection to the use of models and protocols, all these practices are essential elements of assessments for learning.

Another practice that plays a key role in formative assessment is the use of exit tickets. This article provides many ideas and examples of effectively using exit tickets—ideas that can deepen learning in your classroom tomorrow.

Celebrations of Learning

Another essential practice that Teaching for Transformation encourages is a Celebration of Learning. In this season, many of our TfT schools have been busy hosting such celebrations, in many cases for the first time.

This Bulletin celebrates the courage of two schools that hosted these new events. Briana Simoneau, TfT Coordinator at Mount Zion Christian School, shares the story of their elementary celebration through these slides, while Scott Frizzell shares this video of the K-12 Celebration of Learning at Harding Academy. Congratulations to both of these schools for inviting their learners to share with their community how their learning is part of God’s redemptive story.

FLEx Cards

Our elementary example is from last year’s sixth grade Language Arts class at Moline Christian School. This FLEx card shares the story of her students living into their Storyline of be a rock, make a ripple as they used their writing skills to encourage leaders who are using their influence well to improve their community.

The secondary example is also a story of students being empowered to use their writing skills. Kelly Lecci’s Honors English 4 students were invited to practice community building and image reflecting as they used their poetry skills to create public service announcements for an upcoming meal packing event hosted at Coastal Christian School.

Summer 2025 TfT Masterclasses

Registration is open!

We are excited to announce open registration for our 2025 TfT Masterclasses. In addition to some of our regularly repeated classes, we have again expanded our course offerings to offer classes that emphasize the essential practices of TfT.

Early Childhood TfT Practices: Preschool-Kindergarten	Elementary TfT Practices: Grades 1-5	Middle School TfT Practices: Grades 6-8
English Language Arts: Grades 6-12	World Languages: Grades 6-12	Physcial Education: Grades K-12
Storyboards: Grades K-12	Reflection: Grades K-12	Instructional Coaching*
		*For anyone who has attended (at least) Level 100 of the TfT Coaching Intensive

Masterclasses are led by school-based TfT practitioners. Each class provides a highly efficient, practical learning experience that will set you up with TfT plans for the year and a new set of collegial relationships from across the TfT network to encourage, support, and sustain your work.

Please contact Amanda Albright if you have further questions.

The TfT Tips Trio

Student voice is often associated with words like, agency, authenticity, ownership. Within our TfT work, we invite teachers into the “peculiar teacher promise” to invite, nurture, and empower. This week’s tips focus on ideas for empowering students’ agency, voice, and ownership by bringing their voice into common school practices in a TfT kind of way.

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