Next Steps for Defining Assessment

Define assessment as a team.

Understand how assessment will be used (both formatively and summatively).

Communicate that definition, and use it with both students and parents.

Design assessment experiences that allow for feedback and an instructional response.

Remind students to be vulnerable in the assessment process, and use the feedback loop to keep students involved.

Frequently reassess and look for ways to increase communication and learning.

Assessment often ends up as an afterthought and a method to punish students for not reaching proficiency. In Assessment as a Catalyst for Learning: Creating a Responsive and Fluid Process to Inspire All Students, authors Garnet Hillman and Mandy Stalets outline how any assessment can further learning, including on-the-spot informal formative assessments, planned formal formative assessments, and summative assessments to verify learning. The book is full of ready-to-use tools, strategies, and flowcharts that will help teachers utilize assessment itself to help students learn.

“Assessment as a Catalyst for Learning is a must-read for teachers who wish to transform the culture of assessment in their classrooms. This book provides an accessible yet brilliant process for teachers and collaborative teams to pull back the curtain on assessment to create a new paradigm that is transparent, agile, and inspirational.”

—TOM SCHIMMER

Author, Speaker, and Assessment Expert

“Even after adjusting my own assessment practices over a few years, there was much for me to learn from this text about assessment as learning. Assessment as a Catalyst for Learning is for those just beginning to question their assessment understandings and for those who are already engaged in assessment discourse.”

—NICHOLAS A. EMMANUELE

High School English Teacher, Department Chair, and Preservice Teacher Educator

K–12 teachers and administrators will:

• Embrace assessment not as isolated events but as a clear process to empower students with hope and self-efficacy • Learn how to identify and deconstruct priority standards to build learning progressions • Apply practical steps to develop formative and summative assessments • Receive useful advice about planning daily instruction around assessment • Answer end-of-chapter reflection questions to further their understanding of the assessment process

ISBN 978-1-952812-23-1

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Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment to download the free reproducibles in this book.