Intro to Standards-Based Feedback & Assessment

• LOCATION: St. Francis College, 179 Livingston St., Brooklyn
• DATE & TIME: Monday, July 27 - Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 9am - 3pm daily
• LED BY: Sharona Kahn, Smith, and Mark Schober (bios below)
• CTLE AVAILABLE: 18
• THIS WORKSHOP IS FOR: teachers/educators working with any subject, any age level who have little or no experience in the SBFA techniques.

🚨NOTE: all are welcome at this workshop. There is also a workshop running Thursday-Friday the same week for those who want to further their SBFA practice, and is appropriate for people who have taken the workshop before, or who want to take both this summer.

This 3-day introductory workshop is designed for educators of all disciplines who want to explore how Standards-Based Assessment and Feedback techniques can transform their classrooms. How and what we assess fundamentally affects how we teach, how our students learn, and the relationships we build with them. By critically examining traditional grading practices—and the ways they can contribute to student inequalities—we’ll explore how shifting to a standards-based approach helps clarify what we want students to know and be able to do, and how to communicate those objectives clearly.

Over the course of the workshop, you’ll be guided through the steps to set up your classes for standards-based grading, with a focus on incremental, manageable change. Together, we’ll craft and refine learning objectives, connect those objectives to assessments, and explore how to provide feedback that helps students meet your goals. And you’ll develop methods to provide your students with itemized feedback aligned to defined course objectives, helping them better understand what they know and what they need to practice, supporting a growth mindset and a practice-until-you-succeed approach to learning.

There will be structured time to evaluate your current grading practices, examine sample standards, assessments, and gradebooks, and begin tailoring these tools for your own classroom. Throughout, we’ll consider how to design an assessment system that is part of a cyclical learning process and reflects an equity lens. Whether you’re new to standards-based grading or just getting started, you’ll leave with practical strategies, concrete resources, and a clear path forward. It will be a fun and intense few days that we hope you will find invigorating and rewarding!

A downloadable version of the agenda is available HERE.

Sharona Kahn is the Mathematics Department Chair at the Berkeley Carroll School, where she has taught and advised middle school students for the past eight years. With 16 years of experience in education, she focuses on creating hands-on, equitable learning experiences that help students develop deep mathematical understanding. Since joining STEMteachersNYC in 2017, Sharona has both taken and led workshops, with a particular passion for standards-based feedback and assessment. She is a recipient of the Siegel STEM Fellow Endowment.

S.K. Smith "Smith" was raised by wolves in the ancient town of Joplin, Missouri, where, at the ripe, old age of twelve she ran off with a second-rate traveling circus.  Having learned the necessary skills of fire-breathing and hoop-jumping, she now spends her time roaming about the country planting plastic flamingos where they are unwanted.  She can belt out a mean torch song in a pinch and--having taught in and around the great cities of Chicago, St. Louis, and New York--is most excited to work with this fantastic cadre of teachers excited about the wild and wooly world of feedback and assessment.  You can reach her to talk about truffles, tarts, and teaching at: [email protected].

Mark Schober teaches high school physics and astronomy at Trinity School in Manhattan, and has led teacher workshops for the St. Louis Area Physics Teachers, the American Modeling Teachers Association, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and STEMteachersNYC, from Introduction to Modeling Instruction workshops, to Make-n-Take workshops, to rethinking assessment and feedback to improve student learning. He also leads students in astrophotography, flying airplanes, launching rockets, knitting, and coached the 2011 World Champion Quidditch team.

is celebrating 15 years! Since 2011, we have delivered professional development workshops for teachers, by teachers, about teaching. We are an approved CTLE and NYCPS MTAC vendor. All workshops over 2hrs offer CTLE. Below is some important information, but please see our official on our website for full details and policies.

Pricing: workshop/event pricing reflects a desire to offer affordable professional learning experiences. Some workshops are subsidized and offered at a discount or for free. Some workshops include extra materials costs. Often, there is both a “Full Price” ticket for people who can pay full price and for schools/organizations paying for their staff to attend, and a “Teacher Price” ticket for teachers/educators paying out of pocket. If price is a barrier to your participation, please keep reading for several options.

CUNY & other partner campus pre-service students: If you are training to be a teacher, we want to welcome you to attend our workshops for free! Please email [email protected] for details and to see if you qualify.

Want to pay by invoice or purchase order? We encourage you to ask your school or organization if this is a possibility. Please see the for the process, which includes a template letter with messaging geared towards administrators.

Are there discounts available? Often, yes!

• Discounted Early Bird and “Teacher Price” tickets are often available.
• Each summer, the Wanninkhof Excellence in Teaching Scholarship provides up to 2 free workshops per teacher in TItle 1 or similar schools.
• Specials and discounts are announced on our social media (@STEMteachersNYC on Instagram, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Facebook), and in our Weekly Newsletter – sign up here.
• We partner with several organizations and CUNY to offer free tickets to teachers and pre-service teachers involved.
• If at any time price is a barrier to you purchasing a ticket, please contact us at [email protected]

Refunds, cancellations, and other registration/ticketing policies or changes: Please see the full for details and policies.

Please note: We take screenshots, photographs and record video of our workshops in order to publicize a positive image of science teaching, and of STEMteachersNYC – a recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit organization – and to support future teacher leaders. If you register, you are agreeing to be photographed and to have your voice and image video-recorded. You are also agreeing to relinquish all your rights to the photographs and video recordings.

If you do not wish to be photographed or video-recorded – you must inform us before the workshop starts. For in-person workshops, we may take one photograph of your face so that we can erase your image if we happen to catch it by chance during the workshop, and we will do our best to avoid you.

Have more questions? Please see the full for further details and policies, or contact us directly:

• Registration or ticketing questions - [email protected]
• Questions about invoice/PO issues - [email protected]
• Any other questions - [email protected]

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