This book focuses on interim and formative assessments as distinguished from the more usual interest in summative assessment. I was particularly interested in seeing what the experts have to say about a full system of assessment. This book has particular interest in what information a teacher, a school or even a state could collect that monitors the progress of a student as he or she learns. The authors were asked to think about assessing the effects of teaching and learning throughout the student’s participation in the curriculum. This book is the product of a conference by the Maryland Assessment Research Center for Education Success (MARCES) with funding from the Maryland State Department of Education.

The standards-based reform movement has resulted in the wide-spread use of summative assessments designed to measure students' performance at specific points in time. While many have hoped that these end-of-year tests would provide constructional useful information for educators, they do not. This is not because there is something "wrong" with these summative accountability tests, rather that they were not designed to meet instructional purposes. Recognizing the inherent limitations of summative assessment, educators are looking for additional assessments to inform and track student learning during the year. Large numbers of vendors are now selling what they call "benchmark," "diagnostic," and/or "predictive" assessments with promises of improving student performance. These systems often lay claim to the research documenting the powerful effect of formative assessment on student learning. However, the research in this area, including the seminal Black and Wiliam (1998) meta-analysis, evaluated formative assessments of a very different character than essentially all current commercially-available interim assessment programs. This policy brief provides a definition to differentiate between true classroom formative assessment and the interim assessments currently in the marketplace. It also describes a framework for understanding what purposes interim assessments can serve and considering their appropriate role in a comprehensive assessment system. The goal of this brief is to help district leaders thoughtfully examine the commercially-available interim assessment products, develop strong specifications for a customized system, develop their own interim assessments, or determine that interim assessments are not an appropriate tool for their assessment system. A second goal is to help state leaders consider what role they might play in supporting effective interim assessment practices. This policy brief is organized into the following seven sections: (1) Distinguishing among Assessment Types; (2) Questions to Start With; (3) Determining the Purpose for the Interim Assessment; (4) Characteristics of an Effective Interim Assessment System to Be Used for Instructional Purposes; (5) Current Commercially Available Interim Assessment Systems; (6) Implications for District and State Decision Makers; and (7) Conclusions.

Offers practical advice on using and improving assessment for learning in the classroom.

Build a balanced assessment system and support ESSA requirements! The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) increases assessment flexibility and responsibilities for states and districts, and this comprehensive guide helps leaders meet and succeed that challenge. Authors Chappuis, Commodore and Stiggins have helped thousands of teachers, principals and other educational leaders in becoming assessment-literate and developing assessment systems built on quality assessment. Readers will learn how to: Develop balance in an assessment system by combining formative and summative approaches, providing insight on students’ progress Strengthen classroom-based assessment and involve students in self-assessment

Offers a practical guide for improving schools dramatically that will enable all students from all backgrounds to achieve at high levels. Includes assessment forms, an index, and a DVD.

It's time to move our assessment practices from the 1950s to the century we're living in. It's time to invest in our teachers and local school leaders instead of in more tests. It's time to help all students understand how to unleash their strengths and gain a sense of themselves as learners capable of choosing their own paths to success. In The Perfect Assessment System, Rick Stiggins calls for the ground-up redevelopment of assessment in U.S. education. Speaking from more than 40 years of experience in the field—and speaking for all learners who hope to succeed, the teachers who want them to succeed, and the local school leaders whose aspirations for success have been thwarted by assessment traditions—Stiggins maps out the adjustments in practice and culture necessary to generate both accurate accountability data and the specific evidence of individual mastery that will support sound instructional decision making and better learning in the classroom. He addresses Assessment purpose—how (and why) to clarify the reason for every assessment and the users it will serve. Learning targets to be assessed—how to make sure we focus on the right competencies and set consistent definitions of success. Assessment quality—how to ensure every assessment, at every level, is an excellent one. Communication of assessment results—how to share information in ways that best support diverse purposes. Assessment impact—how to link assessment to truly productive, universal student motivation. We have not yet begun to explore assessment's true potential to enhance both school quality and student well-being. Stiggins kicks off this critical conversation and charts a course for a new system that promises much higher levels of student success at a fraction of our current testing costs. The door is open for assessment reform; here is a bold plan for getting it right.

For years, educators have turned to the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrices (CRM) when it comes to assessment. Now for the first time, the modules are packaged into one resource to help teachers evaluate the quality and premise of their current assessment system.

In this important book, education expert Kim Marshall shows how to break away from the typical and often ineffective evaluation approaches in which principals use infrequent classroom visits or rely on standardized test scores to assess a teacher's performance. Marshall proposes a broader framework for supervision and evaluation that enlists teachers in improving the performance of all students. Emphasizing trust-building and teamwork, Marshall's innovative, four-part framework shifts the focus from periodically evaluating teaching to continuously analyzing learning. This book offers school principals a guide for implementing Marshall's framework and shows how to make frequent, informal classroom visits followed by candid feedback to each teacher; work with teacher teams to plan thoughtful curriculum units rather than focusing on individual lessons; get teachers as teams involved in low-stakes analysis of interim assessment results to fine-tune their teaching and help struggling students; and use compact rubrics for summative teacher evaluation. This vital resource also includes extensive tools and advice for managing time as well as ideas for using supervision and evaluation practices to foster teacher professional development.

"Gathering data and using it to inform instruction is a requirement for many schools, yet educators are not necessarily formally trained in how to do it. This book helps bridge the gap between classroom practice and the principles of educational psychology. Teachers will find cutting-edge advances in research and theory on human learning and teaching in an easily understood and transferable format. The text's integrated model shows teachers, school leaders, and district administrators how to establish a data culture and transform quantitative and qualitative data into actionable knowledge based on: assessment; statistics; instructional and differentiated psychology; classroom management."--Publisher's description.