Checking for Understanding: Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom

by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey

What teacher hasn't sometimes believed that the entire class understands a lesson, even though only a few students are nodding their heads and answering questions? Later, the teacher is dismayed when many students fail a related test. Why aren't students getting it? And, just as important, why didn't the teacher recognize the problem?

In Checking for Understanding, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey show how to increase students' understanding with the help of creative formative assessments. When used regularly, these types of assessments enable every teacher to determine what students know, what they need to know, and what type of instructional interventions are effective. Fisher and Frey explore a variety of engaging activities that can build understanding, including: interactive writing, portfolios, multimedia presentations, audience response systems, interactive hand signals, public performances, and much more.

Checking for Understanding further explores how teachers can effectively use traditional tests and collaborative assessments to improve instruction and increase students' comprehension. Rubrics and charts help teachers check their own understanding as they work with students. Whether you are preparing students to read a Shakespearian sonnet or create their next science project, Checking for Understanding will help you refocus your teaching and enable all students to get the most out of their classroom experience.

About the Author:
Douglas Fisher is a professor of language and literacy education at San Diego State University

About the Author:
Nancy Frey is an associate professor of literacy at San Diego State University

Genres: Education, Teaching, Professional Development, Nonfiction

214 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is an educator and Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College.

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Reviews

[Theresa Leone Davidson]

Terrific book by Frey and Fisher that details some creative strategies for making sure your students “get” what you are teaching them. I work for a district that is really good at giving its teachers professional development, including these kinds of strategies but still, I learned from this. Recommend for all teachers!

[Tracey]

Awesome book!!! Great ideas! Some are very obvious but it is nice to see them all in one collection! I plan to have this book in my classroom for reference this fall!!

[Alexandria Avona]

The rubrics were helpful. It's good to be able to place, according to results, the caliber of your checking for understanding. That said, a naturally empathic teacher is going to be doing all of this. I'm glad it's out there for those that struggle, but I didn't get much from this except learning the difference between formative and summative reading. It would be useful otherwise to help quantify the quality, specifically, of my checking for understanding. Checking if even a little more beyond the natural might be required every now and then. But otherwise it all seems relatively basic as part of the teaching profession to me. I understand its necessity and ableism on this point affects the teaching profession too but as I said.

[Mandy]

I'm not sure if it's really fair to rate a textbook like a regular book. I definitely feel like I learned techniques to use, and I feel like it'll be great information as a resource but it wasn't a fun read. I did appreciate having examples in different content areas to see the information applied. I feel like there should maybe be an updated version (or that my class should be using it if there is) since this was published in 2007 and refers to many studies that are 10-15+ years old. I realize the data is still valuable but so much has changed in the education system since then that an update would be nice, especially in relation to standards, etc.

[Luke Sweeney]

I'm not entirely sure why this book exists.

[Sarah Bayer]

A great book for teachers who want to move their students in the direction of academic gains. Helps educators understand how to check for understanding through purposeful questioning techniques.

[Colby]

So so very informative. A book I know I will return to throughout my career!

[Karen]

A great review (for me) on the concept of Checking for Understanding. I enjoyed that the book points out this should be done at least every 15 minutes during a lesson.

[Donna]

alot of good ideas to check for understanding using formative assessments...you can find useful info here if you are a secondary teacher even tho geared toward lower grade teachers

[Alaine]

I found this book to be a thoroughly worthwhile look at why teachers assess students, why they should assess students, and how they can do so more effectively. This book spurred me to consider what I accomplish with some of my assessments, encouraged me to change others, and added several valuable "tricks" to my repertoire. Pair-and-share, foldables, project- and performance- based assessments are all things I have added or started to think about in a different way due to reading this book. I think what I have learned will be especially valuable in working with students who don't test particularly well, although I also think it will just serve to help me vary my assessments and give greater thought to what, exactly, I am trying to accomplish with a particular assessment.

[Kari]

What is wonderful about this book is that it reminds us of why we assess our students. Not just how to do it (which they do offer so many wonderful ways) but also why. Not for state testing requirements, not for state or federal funding, but to improve our teaching. We assess our students to improve their learning experiences through our teaching. We assess our students to see where misconceptions or flat out misunderstandings lie. A good book to remind us of how important these points are in this high stakes testing environment.

[Carla]

This is a great book that talks about using oral language, written language, and other formative assessment techniques to check for a student's level of understanding. Very practical and diverse in terms of techniques.

[Mari]

The authors offer a rich array of practical and proven methods for diagnosing students' prior knowledge and preconceptions before instruction begins and for regularly monitoring their learning along the way.

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[Jean]

A fellow teacher and I are reading this for a summer book study. Although some specific teaching techniques are immediately usable (I used one last class), most of the book is directed toward elementary teachers.

[Jaime]

All it took was 5 minutes over lunch on Thursday to conclude that this book offers just a couple of new assessment ideas--which I will try, of course!

[Bug]

Highly recommended to me by very experienced teachers--So I feel confident recommending it without reading. Have not yet had time to read.

[Thomas Henderson]

Invaluable for both the new and the experienced teacher.

[Rachel]

This books includes some great reminders about why we assess as well as some specifics strategies for assessment.

[Carla]

Excellent book about formative assessment. Lots of very usable ideas for checking on student understanding - examples make the explanations clear.