A revision-based assessment system, driven by clear rubrics, can mean less stress, more effective feedback, and greater student learning. English teacher Alexis Wiggins shares an effective and time-friendly revision-based assessment system she developed that allows students to focus on learning, not their grade.

In theory, rubrics are useful because they inform students of their level of achievement, providing detailed descriptions of a range of evaluation criteria. Teachers know it's best practice to continually update and tweak their rubrics in response to student performance and feedback. But the question remains: do students actually use these…

Well-crafted rubrics create a shared language that lets teachers and students work together. Rubrics are typically used to judge the level of students' understanding and skills or quality of a product. High-quality rubrics can also give students and teachers feedback to improve teaching and learning. Authors define "effective" feedback…

When teachers give a group grade for discussions, students focus on collaboration--not "airtime." Alexis Wiggins, teacher and author of "The Best Class You Never Taught" (ASCD, 2017), describes how--and why--a group grade works so well for class conversations (a bonus rubric is included).

The authors describe the Analytic Writing Continuum, a scoring system developed by writing assessment experts and the National Writing Project that provides a powerful way for teachers to assess students' writing and see good next steps for writing instruction. They give examples of educators using the AWC both to help students self-evaluate their…

As part of "The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline" initiative, six districts have been working to reshape their school leadership evaluation systems to provide better and more consistent feedback to principals--and ultimately to help them grow in their jobs. In this article, Pamela Mendels, a senior editor at Wallace, describes the…

"Memorizing facts is boring. Drill-and-practice is boring. But thinking, for most students most of the time, is actually fun," writes Susan M. Brookhart. The author recommends that teachers build interest and engagement into every lesson plan by creating opportunities for deep thinking. She describes three strategies to accomplish this.…

Meng Li Lusardi, a Chinese teacher at an independent school in New York, recently set out to provide her students with more personalized learning and assessment. In this article, Lusardi documents how she revamped a project with personalization in mind, which resulted in content-rich exploration and greater student engagement. The author's…

Despite all the speaking that students do in class, they don't speak all that well. We sit through mediocre book reports and think, "Oh well, that's just how kids speak." We post a video to YouTube with students speaking poorly and kid ourselves by saying, "Hey, that's authentic speech!" Daily, we accept oral…

Creativity is a simple concept that can be difficult to get one's head around. In its most basic sense, creative means "original and of high quality." Probably the foremost characteristic of creative students is that they put things together in new ways. Teachers can assess creativity at every grade level and in every subject, using both basic and…

Headlines offer a plethora of opinions and arguments both for and against proposed and newly implemented teacher evaluation systems all over the United States. Hardly anyone balks at the idea of evaluating teachers, but many question whether these new evaluation systems really improve teaching and learning. The author's experience with the new…

In this article, the author explains the key differences among three kinds of instructionally relevant tests that can have a huge impact on what goes on in classrooms: "instructionally insensitive tests," "instructionally sensitive tests," and "instructionally informative tests." If educators understand the advantages and limitations of these…

Formative assessment has been receiving increasing attention in education. But from a classroom teacher's perspective, changing assessment practices is not always an easy, straightforward process. This article describes the experiences of five middle schools science teachers who met together weekly to exchange ideas about integrating formative…

Standardized writing tests helps educators to learn how well their students' will be scored and how well they can apply assessment techniques in their own classrooms. Students can use assessment as an instruction tool in order to generate a scoring rubric of their own, which fosters critical thinking and formative self-assessment abilities that…

Dlott, an instructional specialist, was a neophyte at digital broadcasting and blogging, but she could clearly see that creating podcasts would help elementary students reach a large audience and fire their motivation to do research and write. Dlott details three projects involving podcasting that she and classroom teachers launched at elementary…