Formative Assessment Resources

The Student Role in Formative Assessment: How I Know Practitioner Guide

One of the key distinguishers of formative assessment lies in the relationship between a student and teacher in the shared ownership of assessing what students know and are able to do. This guide is designed to help teachers cultivate that relationship.

Keys to Success for Formative Assessment: A Practitioner’s Guide

The How I Know Practitioner Guide “Formative Assessment: Keys to Success” outlines several conditions that must be met for successful formative assessment. It is designed as a tool to enhance formative assessment in a friendly format for easy sharing and printing.

Formative Assessment in the Classroom: Findings from Three Districts

2015 research report after investigating 3 urban school districts on how, and how well, teachers in these districts use data to inform instruction on a daily basis.

How A Culture of Formative Assessment Impacts Mindsets

Dallas ISD’s integration of formative assessment into classrooms and schools has been a multi-year effort requiring reflection, depth of commitment, and student ownership. In this blog post, Arlena Gaynor shares a detailed look at how they tried to make it happen, and what they learned through the experience.

What We’ve Learned From Two Years of Piloting Formative Assessment

After reflecting on the first two years working to establish formative assessment practices in some of their district’s classrooms, in this blog post, Katy Escandell and Dr. Lisa Goodnow look back at what worked and what didn’t, what they learned, and at how they plan to sustain the culture.

The Fundamentals of Formative Assessment: How to Build a Practice

When Abbey Gonzalez and Erin Lester originally recognized formative assessment as a complex practice that demands a combination of “soft” skills and content, they knew they had a challenging but achievable path ahead of them. In this post, they share what they learned through two years of practice.

Teacher Reflections on Practicing Student-Driven Formative Assessment

In this blog post, Barbara Jones explores how three teachers’ daily formative assessment-driven practices of transparency, modeling and support enable them and their students to shift mindsets towards greater shared responsibility for learning.

How Formative Assessment Transforms the Classroom, From Culture to Lesson Plans

Using formative assessment requires a willingness to embrace change at all levels–from guiding mindsets, philosophies and classroom culture, to daily schedules and lessons plans. In this blog post, Brea Lewis, a third- and fourth-grade math teacher, reflects on these changes.

Building a Collaborative Culture: From Inspiration to Application

Creating a collaborative culture takes time and remains a continual process. In this blog post, Mary Ryerse and Bob Rosenfeld explore how formative assessment can help.

The Power of Teacher-to-Teacher Observations: A Formative Assessment Field Trip

A group of teachers set out on an adventure to conduct classroom observations and to seek out answers to some of their key questions about formative assessment. This blog post explores what they learned.

Impacting the Classroom through Student-Driven Learning in Dallas

In Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD), as teachers work to embed new curricular resources, there is a special focus on student-driven learning. This blog post explores how formative assessment has contributed to creation of a highly student-driven culture.

Coaching Yields Better Formative Assessment in Tulsa

Formative assessment coaching helps teachers in Tulsa Public Schools to shift their thinking from the teacher role to the student role within the classroom so that students become more involved in, and responsible for, learning. This blog post explores what that looks like.

Austin ISD Focuses on Social Emotional Learning

The Austin ISD team emphasizes the importance of relationships as a common thread that helps the district integrate efforts around two of their key focus areas: formative assessment practice and Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Learn more here.

Formative Assessment in Practice: Teacher Vignettes from Three Districts

Teacher stories and lessons learned from an investigation into formative assessment practice.

How A Culture of Formative Assessment Impacts Mindsets

Dallas ISD’s integration of formative assessment into classrooms and schools has been a multi-year effort requiring reflection, depth of commitment, and student ownership. In this blog post, Arlena Gaynor shares a detailed look at how they tried to make it happen, and what they learned through the experience.

What We’ve Learned From Two Years of Piloting Formative Assessment

After reflecting on the first two years working to establish formative assessment practices in some of their district’s classrooms, in this blog post, Katy Escandell and Dr. Lisa Goodnow look back at what worked and what didn’t, what they learned, and at how they plan to sustain the culture.

The Fundamentals of Formative Assessment: How to Build a Practice

When Abbey Gonzalez and Erin Lester originally recognized formative assessment as a complex practice that demands a combination of “soft” skills and content, they knew they had a challenging but achievable path ahead of them. In this post, they share what they learned through two years of practice.

How School Administrators Can Support and Promote Formative Assessment

As teachers work to develop formative assessment-focused lesson plans and structures that enable students to increasingly become responsible for their own learning, administrators must give teachers the support and flexibility they need to rethink their approach. In this blog post, Susan Villani explores how they can provide this support.

PODs in Action: Teachers Engage in Productive Peer Feedback

Incorporating new methods and tools like the POD cycle can have a significant and meaningful impact on the success of a formative assessment classroom. In this blog post, we explore how PODs have contributed to a number of teachers’ practices

Professional Learning Through the Plan, Observe, Debrief (POD) Model

The majority of teachers indicate that collaboration is beneficial to improving their practice, but many yearn for structures to make that process more focused and effective. This case study illustrates how the POD model can help

The Research Base for Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is at the forefront of many education conversations and, at present, many accept intuitively that it’s an important part of the learning process. But how do we know it actually works? This blog post unpacks some of the research base underlying the practice of formative assessment.

Reflections on #HowIKnow: A Formative Assessment Project

Though it’s early in the How I Know project, we’ve already identified two key lessons to share about professional development in formative assessment practice. This post shares what those lessons are.

Social and Emotional Learning Skills are Essential to Formative Assessment Practice

Just as formative assessment informs the teaching and learning of math, reading and science skills, it can also provide essential guidance for the teaching of discrete SEL skills. This article explores that relationship, and how to make the most of it.

Keys to Success for Formative Assessment: A Practitioner’s Guide

The How I Know Practitioner Guide “Formative Assessment: Keys to Success” outlines several conditions that must be met for successful formative assessment. It is designed as a tool to enhance formative assessment in a friendly format for easy sharing and printing.

What Is Formative Assessment? Voices from the Field

Getting Smart interviewed half a dozen thought leaders and participants involved in the How I Know pilot to find out what exactly is formative assessment and what they hope to accomplish as part of the initiative.

Scaling Formative Assessment: The How I Know Project

On a daily basis, students need to know how they are doing and teachers need to know how to move learning forward. The How I Know project will identify ways to achieve this through formative assessment.

Necessary Conditions for Successful Implementation of Formative Assessment

Using the Formative Assessment Rubrics, Reflection and Observation Tools to Support Professional Reflection on Practice

Includes the rubric for each of the ten dimensions of formative assessment practice, along with context

Formative Assessment Lesson Planning Tool

This tool includes fields to outline content standards, learning goals, success criteria, and evidence gathering. This tool also provides a great framework for teams to use as they provide feedback to each other.

The Student Role in Formative Assessment: How I Know Practitioner Guide

One of the key distinguishers of formative assessment lies in the relationship between a student and teacher in the shared ownership of assessing what students know and are able to do. This guide is designed to help teachers cultivate that relationship.

What Students Have to Say About Formative Assessment