This practical new book from Pearson Assessment Training Institute organizes research-based recommendations about classroom assessment practices around three formative assessment ";Where am I going?";; ";Where am I now?";; and ";How can I close the gap?"; The framework is sequenced so that you can easily weave assessment for learning practices into daily teaching and assessment activities. The Seven Strategies are organized around the three big Am I Going?Strategy 1: Provide a clear and understandable vision of the learning target.Strategy 2: Use examples and models of strong and weak work. Where Am I Now?Strategy 3: Offer regular descriptive feedback.Strategy 4: Teach students to self-assess and set goals. How Can I Close the Gap?Strategy
Jan Chappuis does a good job of sharing both pracital examples and samples of tools teachers can use in support of their formative assessment practice. A study guide is available online as well.
Great one-stop-shop for best practices. Concepts are actionable with options (not requirements) for executing each step. The message really is: establish a vision of quality you share with students so they can self-assess, reflect, and feel capable, through visible incremental gains, of learning. To do this, you need to have evidence (models that meet criteria and models that don't, student work at different stages). It made me think of a line from Charles Olson's "The Kingfishers": "Around an appearance, one common model, we grow up / many." He also writes there, as Chappuis may also mean: "the feed-back proves, the feed-back is / the law."
I was required to read this book for a graduate course on assessment strategies. While this book was easy to read and had many great strategies that I was able to implement in my own classroom if I had not already been doing so, I do think this book would have been a better fit for an undergraduate education student who is learning how to become a teacher.
Fellow educators: this was the most helpful pedagogical book I’ve read to date. Provides helpful insights on formative assessment with relevant anecdotes and ideas to explore.
Learned so much and gained so many ideas from this. Like go off grad school, this text slayed!! Loved all the examples, too; I am for sure ripping some of these for my class.
Has great templates to use for getting students involved in assessment and their learning. Can't wait to start using these with my kids next year to help them to truly own their learning and to become independent thinkers!
One of the best professional development trainings I've had--nothing new here, but it brings good teaching into clear focus and pushes away all of the other muck that gets in our way. I loved the workshop and the materials.
I've only read chapter 1 but this one may actually be worth the read. The last couple of books someone else selected for professional development have been very ho hum.
Treat this book as either a manual for picking what you need when you need it, or discuss and apply it chapter-by-chapter in a whole faculty study group.