Testing--as any administrator, teacher, or student will share, there is a lot of it going on in schools. It is not only the formal testing that many parents may remember from their school days. There is now a wide array of different kinds of assessment initiated by states, districts, schools, and classroom teachers. Why all this attention to…

With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers and experts in mathematics education developed the Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC) as a strategy to support the transition to Common Core State Standards in math. MDC provides short formative assessment lessons known as Classroom Challenges for use in middle and high…

This article articulates a framework for examining the quality of formative assessment practice and provides empirical evidence in support of one of its components. Based on a study of middle school science, the study examines the accuracy of teachers' judgments of students' understanding and the relationship of such accuracy to middle school …

Discusses the possible disjunct between what is good for large-scale assessment and what is good for teaching and learning. Represents one attempt to "marry" large-scale and classroom perspectives. Presents background and rationale for a new narrative rubric that was designed to support classroom instruction. Presents evidence for the…

The time demands of authentic tasks and consistent scoring pose technical and practical challenges. Involving teachers in test development and scoring helps them grasp what is expected, gain familiarity with examples of standards-based practice, and discover new ways to assess their students' work. Costs are considerably higher than for…