|
|
Damian Cooper is an independent education consultant who specializes in helping schools and school districts improve their instructional and assessment skills. In his varied career, Damian has been a secondary English and Drama teacher, a department head, a librarian, a school consultant and a curriculum developer. He has specialized in student assessment for the past nineteen years. Most recently, Damian was assessment consultant to the School Division of Nelson Thomson Learning where he developed all of the assessment material for Nelson Mathematics - Elementary. Prior to that appointment, he was Co-ordinator of Assessment and Evaluation for the Halton District School Board in Burlington, Ontario.
Damian's expertise in assessment is sought across Canada and in the United States.  He is in constant demand, both as a consultant and as a dynamic, entertaining speaker. He has worked with school administrators, superintendents and teachers on all aspects of assessment, including the analysis and use of large-scale assessment data, portfolio assessment, performance assessment, and reporting procedures. He is a frequent speaker at major conferences, including ASCD, STAO, Reading For the Love of It and Assess To Learn. In 1997, Damian was a member of the Canadian delegation invited by Nelson Mandela's government to establish a national curriculum and assessment framework for South Africa. Recently, Damian has been working with school districts in Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Hawaii to help improve assessment practices in their elementary and secondary schools.
In Ontario, Damian has worked under contract to the Ministry of Education and the Assessment Training Consortium on a variety of projects. He was co-developer of the Ontario Assessment Instrument Pool (OAIP) for students in Basic Level programs, an initiative that introduced the concept of visual targets to educators in this province. As an original member of the Assessment Training Consortium, Damian helped to develop and deliver some of the earliest workshops involving data-based decision-making. After studying with Rick Stiggins and Grant Wiggins, Damian was instrumental in introducing qualitative and performance-based assessment to Ontario educators.
Damian served on the executive of the Association of Educational Researchers of Ontario (AERO) from 1997-2002.
Damian and his partner, Nanci Wakeman-Jones, co-authored both Getting Assessment Right: Language and Getting Assessment Right: Mathematics for Data-Based Directions. Damian's latest project is Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Learning, a resource that includes text, DVD and CD-ROM. It is a must have resource for every teacher. Damian and his colleagues have also developed GradePARtner, a state-of-the-art, web-based program for planning, assessment tracking, and reporting that is currently being piloted in several jurisdictions.
|
