Teacher evaluation systems can have high stakes for individual teachers, and it's important to ask how new evaluation models--including value-added measures--serve teachers as they strive to improve their practice. The authors interviewed teachers at a high-performing New York City school about their reactions to their value-added scores and…

As standardized assessments tied to the Common Core standards approach for K-12 students, U.S. teachers correctly feel that how we test students will change. Will students be ready for tests of proficiency done on computers? Gullen debriefed with 500 students in various grades who had just taken pilot assessment items connected to the coming…

When it comes to professional practice, getting a clear picture of how you're teaching in the classroom is easier said than done. The instructional coaches and teachers whom the author interviewed as part of a study on using video in professional development were, in almost all cases, surprised by what they saw in a video of them teaching. In many…

Brookhart maintains that clear, positive teacher feedback, which provides precise information on the next steps a student can take to reach their learning targets, is at the heart of formative assessment. Because feedback is closely tied to students' feelings of self-efficacy, it can be destructive as well as motivating. Drawing on research and…

Professional assessment organizations almost universally endorse the use of multiple measures for making education decisions. In practice, however, the concept of multiple measures is defined and applied in many different ways, depending on how we answer two questions--What counts as a "measure"? and How are the multiple measures…

The author, an experienced teacher and teacher educator, describes how she has learned to incorporate assessment purposefully into every mathematics lesson she teaches. Such an approach, she writes, tells her whether the lesson was accessible to all students while challenging the more capable, what the students learned and still need to know, how…