This second edition gives you more than 60 tools--with tips and implementation steps--for creating and using formative assessments in every grade level and subject. --from publisher description

Formative assessment is one of the best ways to increase student learning and enhance teacher quality. But effective formative assessment is not part of most classrooms, largely because teachers misunderstand what it is and don't have the necessary skills to implement it. In the updated 2nd edition of this practical guide for school leaders, authors Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart define formative assessment as an active, continual process in which teachers and students work together—every day, every minute—to gather evidence of learning, always keeping in mind three guiding questions: Where am I going? Where am I now? What strategy or strategies can help me get to where I need to go? Chapters focus on the six interrelated elements of formative assessment: (1) shared learning targets and criteria for success, (2) feedback that feeds learning forward, (3) student self-assessment and peer assessment, (4) student goal setting, (5) strategic teacher questioning, and (6) student engagement in asking effective questions. Using specific examples based on their extensive work with teachers, the authors provide - Strategic talking points and conversation starters to address common misconceptions about formative assessment; - Practical classroom strategies to share with teachers that cultivate students as self-regulated, assessment-capable learners; - Ways to model the elements of formative assessment in conversations with teachers about their professional learning; - "What if" scenarios and advice for how to deal with them; and - Questions for reflection to gauge understanding and progress. As Moss and Brookhart emphasize, the goal is not to "do" formative assessment, but to embrace a major cultural change that moves away from teacher-led instruction to a partnership of intentional inquiry between student and teacher, with better teaching and learning as the outcome.

Whether you're already familiar with rubrics or not, this book is a complete resource for writing rubrics that assist with learning as well as assess it. Plus, you'll learn how to wisely select from among the many rubrics available for classroom use.

Join Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher as they outline a clear-cut, realistic, and rewarding approach to formative assessment. They explain how four discrete steps work in tandem to create a seamless, comprehensive formative assessment system—one that has no beginning and no end. This ongoing approach enhances an active give-and-take relationship between teachers and students to promote learning. Where am I going? Step 1: Feed-up ensures that students understand the purpose of an assignment, task, or lesson, including how they will be assessed. Where am I now? Step 2: Checking for understanding guides instruction and helps determine if students are making progress toward their goals. How am I doing? Step 3: Feedback provides students with valuable and constructive information about their successes and needs. Where am I going next? Step 4: Feed-forward builds on the feedback from step 3 and uses performance data to facilitate student achievement. Dozens of real-life scenarios demonstrate how to apply these steps in your classroom, always focusing on the presence or absence of student learning to guide the action. By enabling teachers and students alike to see more clearly what they need to do for learning to be successful, this approach builds students' competence, confidence, and understanding. No matter what grade level you teach, The Formative Assessment Action Plan will help you make better use of assessment data so you can more quickly adjust instruction to keep every student on the path to success.

Covers how to develop and use test questions and other assessments that reveal how well students can analyze, reason, solve problems, and think creatively.

"This comprehensive book covers the foundational concepts and practical skills necessary for teachers to be successful with classroom assessment"--

How do you know if students are with you at the beginning, middle, and end of a lesson? Can formative assessment offer a key to better teaching and learning during instruction? What if you could blend different formative assessment moves in your classroom, with intention and care for all students, to help make better instructional decisions on the fly and enjoy more teachable moments? Educators Brent Duckor and Carrie Holmberg invite you on the journey to becoming a formative assessor. They encourage you to focus on these seven research-based, high-leverage formative assessment moves: Priming--building on background knowledge and creating a formative assessment–rich, equitable classroom culture Posing--asking questions in relation to learning targets across the curriculum that elicit Habits of Mind Pausing--waiting after powerful questions and rich tasks to encourage more student responses by supporting them to think aloud and use speaking and listening skills related to academic language Probing--deepening discussions, asking for elaborations, and making connections using sentence frames and starters Bouncing--sampling student responses systematically to broaden participation, manage flow of conversation, and gather more “soft data” for instructional use Tagging--describing and recording student responses without judgment and making public how students with different styles and needs approach learning in real-time Binning--interpreting student responses with a wide range of tools, categorizing misconceptions and “p-prims,” and using classroom generated data to make more valid and reliable instructional decisions on next steps in the lesson and unit Each chapter explores a classroom-tested move, including foundational research, explaining how and when to best use it, and describing what it looks like in practice. Highlights include case studies, try-now tasks and tips, and advice from beginning and seasoned teachers who use these formative assessment moves in their classrooms.

Properly crafted and individually tailored feedback on student work boosts student achievement across subjects and grades. In this updated and expanded second edition of her best-selling book, Susan M. Brookhart offers enhanced guidance and three lenses for considering the effectiveness of feedback: (1) does it conform to the research, (2) does it offer an episode of learning for the student and teacher, and (3) does the student use the feedback to extend learning? In this comprehensive guide for teachers at all levels, you will find information on every aspect of feedback, including Strategies to uplift and encourage students to persevere in their work. How to formulate and deliver feedback that both assesses learning and extends instruction. When and how to use oral, written, and visual as well as individual, group, or whole-class feedback. A concise and updated overview of the research findings on feedback and how they apply to today's classrooms. In addition, the book is replete with examples of good and bad feedback as well as rubrics that you can use to construct feedback tailored to different learners, including successful students, struggling students, and English language learners. The vast majority of students will respond positively to feedback that shows you care about them and their learning. Whether you teach young students or teens, this book is an invaluable resource for guaranteeing that the feedback you give students is engaging, informative, and, above all, effective.

With new standards emphasizing higher-order thinking skills, students will have to demonstrate their ability to do far more than simply remember facts and procedures. But what's the best way for teachers to ensure that students have such skills? In this highly accessible guide, author Susan M. Brookhart shows how to do just that, by providing specific guidelines for designing targeted questions and tasks that align with standards and assess students' ability to think at higher levels. Aided by dozens of examples across grade levels and subject areas, readers will learn how to: take a student perspective and view assessment questions and tasks as "problems to solve"; design multiple-choice questions that require higher-order thinking; understand the difference between "open" and "closed" questions and how to use open questions effectively; vary and control the features of performance assessment tasks, including cognitive level and difficulty, to target different thinking skills; and manage the assessment of higher-order thinking within the larger context of teaching and learning. Brookhart also provides an "idea bank" that teachers can use to jump-start their own thinking as they create assessments.Timely and practical, How to Design Questions and Tasks to Assess Student Thinking is essential reading for 21st century teachers who want their students to excel in the classroom and beyond.

The multiple, related fields encompassed by this Major Reference Work represent a convergence of issues and topics germane to the rapidly changing segments of knowledge and practice in educational communications and technology at all levels and around the globe. There is no other comparable work that is designed not only to gather vital, current, and evolving information and understandings in these knowledge segments but also to be updated on a continuing basis in order to keep pace with the rapid changes taking place in the relevant fields. The Handbook is composed of substantive (5,000 to 15,000 words), peer-reviewed entries that examine and explicate seminal facets of learning theory, research, and practice. It provides a broad range of relevant topics, including significant developments as well as innovative uses of technology that promote learning, performance, and instruction. This work is aimed at researchers, designers, developers, instructors, and other professional practitioners.