Assessment is usually considered as an afterthought in the instructional design process. Given the many challenges of assessment design--and the lack of ready solutions--teachers may fall back on familiar forms of assessments and hope for the best. As a result, the problem is not a lack of will on the part of teachers. Instead, it is the lack of…

In 2019, the four authors were teaching mathematics at the same public middle school in a suburban district of the mid-atlantic. They had been seeking ways to make adjustments to assessment and grading practices to support students in their learning, and after reading Joe Feldman's "Grading for Equity" (2018), they were inspired to make…

Formative assessment during the course of instruction is an essential practice for supporting all students, including English learners (ELs), in the science classroom. It typically consists of three steps: (1) The teacher elicits information about student learning through various methods; (2) The teacher interprets (or makes sense of) that…

How teachers interact with students is important, not only for students' intellectual growth but also for their social and emotional growth. In the classroom, it is easier to see when students are misunderstanding or are confused about some aspect of the lesson. By walking around the class, I can view what my students are producing, and I can see…

The purpose of this article is to report how Year 6 teachers used geometric reasoning tasks to foster students' mathematical attitudes and dispositions by encouraging communication as students constructed mathematical meaning for themselves. The Year 6 teachers implemented two tasks to provide a rich mathematical assessment opportunity…

Current policy in England, informed by a version of cognitive science, enforces an absolute distinction between experts and novices, or teachers and learners; from this binary, operating in tandem with regimes of performativity instantiated in a curriculum shaped by high-stakes testing, are derived particular forms of pedagogy and particular…

Science and engineering practices (SEPs) and crosscutting concepts (CCs) constitute a significant part of "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012). As teachers, the role of the authors is to highlight the pivotal role that both scientific knowledge and the practices used to generate knowledge play in learning. This article…

With problem-solving as the focus and wisdom as the goal, the concept of giftedness is reconceptualized in the 21st century context. The two most prominent constructs in the field of education for the gifted, creativity and intelligence, are integrated into a view of exceptional talent as consisting of the ability and willingness to solve complex…

The purpose of this article is to introduce the Pickleball Assessment of Skill and Tactics (PAST). The development of the PAST was to address the grade-level outcomes for middle school physical education and provide empirical evidence that physical education teachers can use as formative and/or summative assessment data to guide instruction and…

Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. They can be national, regional, or international; school based or household based. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning…

Great things happen when students are able to focus on their learning instead of their scores. However, assessment reform, including standards-based grading, remains a hotly debated issue in education. "Going Gradeless" shows that it is possible to teach and assess without the stress of traditional grading practices. Sharing their…

Formative assessment is the process of gathering student data "during" instruction, so teachers can make adjustments to facilitate student learning. Despite the benefits of formative assessment for teachers and students, some teachers do not view formative assessment as an integral part of their instruction. Therefore, this article…

In recent years, game-based learning has shown significant promise for creating engaging and effective learning experiences. Developing models that can predict whether students will struggle with mastering certain concepts could guide adaptive support to assist students with mastering those concepts. Game-based learning environments offer…

Since the advent of computers, scientists who study how people learn have been utilizing technology to uncover the cognitive and neural mechanisms of learning. Recent technological advances have allowed learning scientists to move their research out of the lab and into the wild, to investigate how students learn in real-world environments.…

Meaningful inclusion of quantitative reasoning into mathematics instruction requires meaningful ways to evaluate it. Few formative assessments exist to evaluate the strategies students use when reasoning mathematically. The Framework for Evaluating Quantitative Reasoning Strategies presented in this article provides teachers with categories for…