How can we help teachers use classroom assessments to gather appropriate evidence for all valued learning goals, and to use those assessments not just to measure learning but to promote it? This book provides an answer in a practical, proven, and unique Assessment Planning Framework that moves away from solely multiple-choice tests toward a wide…

The purpose of this technical assistance paper is to provide a description of the procedures used to determine school grades for the 2014 school year. Florida's current school accountability system originated with state legislation passed in 1999 (the "A+ Plan") and has been revised periodically to reflect increased standards and…

Don't settle for assessing recall and comprehension only when you can use this guide to create assessments for higher-order thinking skills. Assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart brings you up to speed on how to develop and use test questions and other assessments that reveal how well your students can analyze, reason, solve problems, and think…

This is an Instructional Module for a course entitled Assessment and Instruction for Educational Leaders addresses classroom assessment and the evaluation of instruction. The goal of this course is to help aspiring educational leaders to develop teacher observation and evaluation skills, better understand the construction of teacher generated…

Get an in-depth understanding of how to create fun, engaging, and challenging performance assessments that require students to elaborate on content and demonstrate mastery of skills. This update of an ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) classic includes new scoring methods, reading assessments, and insights on navigating…

While today's curriculum is largely driven by standards, many teachers find the lack of specificity in the standards to be confounding and even intimidating. Now this practical book provides middle and high school teachers with explicit guidance on designing specific objectives and developing appropriate formative and summative assessments to…

A progress map describes the nature of development in an area of learning and thus serves as a frame of reference for monitoring individual growth. An essential feature of a progress map, which is an integral component of Developmental Assessment, is that it describes and illustrates developing competence. The first step in constructing a progress…

The first edition of this book was written to encourage practitioners to adopt more "authentic" assessment practices. This second edition has been expanded to include new information and scholarship about the authentic assessment of young children and the types of information teachers need to implement quality authentic assessment strategies. The…

This Addendum was created with the expectation that it would enhance the understanding of the conceptual framework of "Improving Classroom Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Developers," link its text and activities to other assessment aids, and help trainers design high-quality workshops. The first section of the addendum contains…

Performance tasks build on earlier content knowledge, progress skills, and work habits. They are not add-ons at the end of instruction, but an integral part of the learning and an opportunity to assess the quality of student performance. This guide was written by teachers to share their experiences in the introduction of performance based…

The Work Sampling System is a performance assessment system that is used in preschool through fifth grade to document and assess children's skills, knowledge, behavior, and accomplishments across curriculum areas. This handbook for teacher educators explains the use of the Work Sampling System. The chapters are: (1) "The Work Sampling System…

In the "Student-Centered Classroom Assessment" textbook, readers are offered many opportunities to reflect on classroom assessment ideas in relation to their own classroom assessment experiences. As a companion to that text, this book of case studies serves the same purposes, but in a way that calls for the application of ideas and strategies…

To make the transition from traditional assessment, which was often counterproductive, to an array of assessment applications that will be more constructive for students, teachers must expand their vision of the relationship between assessment and effective schools. Assessment must be used to inform classroom decision making, and it must become…

This publication is part of a series of monographs on the art of teaching. Each volume, focusing on a specific discipline, explores theory in the context of teaching strategies Three techniques for using the series: dialogues (as self-evaluation and in study groups), shop talk (review of current professional literature), and teacher-to-teacher…

One of the benefits of performance based assessment is its allowance for the teacher to gather information about how the student understands and applies knowledge. In this Digest, the basic steps a teacher should take to plan and execute effective performance-based assessment are outlined. Coverage includes the steps of planning and executing…