Improving Formative Assessment Practice to Empower Student Learning

Written primarily for staff developers, professional development specialists, and school leaders working with teachers to improve their effectiveness, this is a professional development book focused on helping teachers understand and improve their assessment-for-learning practices in order to improve student learning. Built around opportunities for teachers to reflect on practice, consider alternative approaches, and put them into practice in their own classrooms, it offers a 4-step process for developing competency in formative assessment practices. In terms of formative assessment, teachers routinely ask and answer a series of three questions with and for students: Where are my students headed? Where are they right now? How can I close the gap between where they are and where I want them to be? In terms of the teachers themselves, the book calls on teachers to ask and answer parallel questions for themselves: Where am I going? What can formative assessment practice look like? Where am I currently in my formative assessment practice? How do I close the gap?