The PLATO Protocol for Classroom Observations

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Elizabeth Dogget remembers how hard it was to personalize instruction to meet student needs while she was student teaching. “It was really difficult to track where my students were on their progress towards meeting a learning objective and giving them timely feedback,” she recalls. “Often I would take a bunch of stuff home over the weekend, but by the time I got through giving them all feedback, it would be too late for them to make meaningful changes.”

Teachers know that meeting students’ individual needs in a bustling classroom is a Sisyphean task. But the job may be getting easier, thanks to a variety of new digital literacy tools. Last year Debra Rook began using Newsela, a program that uses news articles about current events to build reading comprehension, and customizes each article for five different reading levels.