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District Letter Template for Parent Permission 

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District Letter Template for Parent Permission 

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Identifies common student need and feedback reports and questions. Available in the Units of Study Kit

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Page Keeley Books Available for Checkout at the TRC 

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Page Keeley Books Available for Checkout at the TRC 

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Link to TRC Library

Here are some of the books available:

Vol. 1 - Uncovering Student Ideas in Physical Science

Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy

Vol. 1 - Uncovering Student Ideas in Life Science

Uncovering Student Ideas

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Page Keeley probe with implications for student understanding
Link to Full Article:

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Planning for Student Responses/ Questions for Conferring

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Planning for expected Student Responses/ Questions for Conferring

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Provides an introduction to four basic parts of formative assessments with video examples of each.

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The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is an organization of member states committed to providing tools and resources that support teaching and learning. The three core components of the Smarter Balanced Assessment System are summative assessments, interim assessments, and formative assessment practices. The videos in this series demonstrate how teachers implement the intent of the Common Core State Standards using the Formative Assessment Process. They were created as components of interactive modules in the Smarter Balanced Digital Library, but we are pleased to share them with you on Teaching Channel's website.

Formative assessment is a deliberate process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides actionable feedback used to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve students' attainment of curricular learning targets/goals.

There are four attributes in the Formative Assessment Process:

Clarify intended learning

Elicit evidence

Interpret evidence

Act on evidence

All of the videos in this series include the four attributes of the Formative Assessment Process and are segmented to highlight each attribute.

In the video segments focusing on clarifying intended learning, you will see teachers and students defining the learning goals and success criteria for the instructional task. For instance, in the video Formative Assessment: Collaborative Discussions, Kelly Bouchard engages her students in creating success criteria using guiding questions about what a collaborative discussion looks like.

See a variety of ways that teachers and students elicit evidence in the segments focusing on this attribute. In Formative Assessment: Understanding Fractions, you'll see fourth grade teacher Melissa Romano circulating around the room, asking questions, listening to students explain their thinking, and recording observational notes on student progress as partners work on candy factory problems.

Learn how teachers and students interpret evidence in the segments focusing on this attribute. For example, in Formative Assessment: Proportional Relationships, students in Charles Elsdon's seventh grade math class use a rubric to interpret evidence of their own and their peers' learning. Mr. Elsdon and the students identify the success criteria students meet and those they do not yet meet. They use this interpretation to adjust teaching and learning strategies.

The final segments spotlighting acting on evidence demonstrate how teachers and students adjust teaching and learning. Watch Formative Assessment: Understanding Congruence and see how high school math teacher April Pforts decides when students are ready to apply their learning about congruent figures to real world applications.

The teachers and students in this series provide a window into the Formative Assessment Process. We are pleased to have partnered with the innovative educators, engaging students, and Teaching Channel to create the videos and hope you find them informative.
Dr. Chrystyna Mursky is the Director of Supports for Instruction for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. She oversees the Consortium's initiatives related to the formative assessment process and professional learning opportunities for educators. With more than 30 years of education experience, Dr. Mursky has taught or served as an administrator at every level, from K-12 to higher education. For more information about Smarter Balanced, visit the website at smarterbalanced.org or follow on Twitter @SmarterBalanced.

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Formative Assessment Practices To Support Student Learning

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The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is an organization of member states committed to providing tools and resources that support teaching and learning. The three core components of the Smarter Balanced Assessment System are summative assessments, interim assessments, and formative assessment practices.

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Dylan Wiliam Center Webinar: The Right Questions, the Right Way

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In this webinar, formative assessment authority Dr. Dylan Wiliam discusses the use of a wide range of classroom techniques to improve questioning, along with ways to create and capitalize upon "teachable moments" and the defining characteristics of effective diagnostic questions.

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Learning Sciences International Leadership Training for Sustainable Growth

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Authors Rita M Bean & Jacy Ippolito on Literacy Coaching

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Dylan Wiliam Webinar: Strategic Formative Assessment

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Less Testing. Better Evidence. More Learning. Join Dr. Dylan Wiliam for a webinar on Strategic Formative Assessment a groundbreaking series of full-day workshops offered exclusively through Learning Sciences International. He explains why it's the most cost-effective way to help teachers develop the habit of getting student evidence throughout every lesson-even as they teach.

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Common Sense Media Review of Digital Formative Assessment Tools and Backchannels

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Common Sense Media Review of Digital Formative Assessment Tools and Backchannels

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Top Tech Tools for Formative Assessment | Common Sense Education

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Find the right formative assessment tools for your classroom. These digital tools range from discussion (e.g., Piazza, TodaysMeet) to quizzing, polling, and student responses (e.g., Kahoot, Formative) to interactive lessons and videos (e.g., Nearpod, Flipgrid).

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Formative Assessment Probes

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Templates For Formative Assesment Probes

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Templates For Formative Assesment Probes

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Science Formative Assessment Classroom Techniques (FACTS) Templates

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Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Click here for templates from Volume 1: Science Formative Assessment- 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning (Keeley 2008)Â Click here for templates from Volume 1: Mathematics Formative Assessment- 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction

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Dial Up Your Formative Assessments: Teaching Channel article linked to several video examples  

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Dial Up Your Formative Assessments: Teaching Channel article linked to several video examples  

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In my role as assessment coach and consultant, I have had many conversations about the differences between formative assessment as a form of testing, and formative assessment strategies that become part of instructional pedagogy. A common misconception among educators is the use of formative assessment as a noun, when in fact the research frames formative assessment as a verb. Capturing the strategies that move learning forward can be tricky, but Teaching Channel has some great examples of practical ways that teachers can implement formative assessment.

In his book Embedded Formative Assessment, Dylan Wiliam reminds us that, "The shorter the time interval between eliciting the evidence and using it to improve instruction, the bigger the likely impact on learning." Wiliam, along with other assessment gurus (Hattie, Stiggins, Heritage, Brookhart, and countless others) have been encouraging the use of formative classroom strategies for many years. Each of them talks about the use of specific and descriptive feedback, the active involvement of students in their own learning, adjusting teaching to take into account the results of evidence collected during learning, and a shift in focus from paper and pencil testing to gathering data from minute by minute classroom interactions with students.

With the recent change in legislation from No Child Left Behind, to the Every Student Succeeds Act, we just may have the opportunity to refocus on formative assessment strategies, and reduce the frenetic focus on summative test scores. If we take a deep breath, and employ great teaching strategies, we may be surprised at the results. Endless test-prep has not been proven to raise test scores, but formative assessment strategies have been proven to increase learning, as well as student engagement.

The best teachers continuously monitor student learning as they go about teaching to the standards. Teaching Channel has a wealth of videos that show how this can be done effectively and efficiently. One of my favorite examples is My Favorite No, featuring Leah Alcala in Oakland, California. In the six-minute video, Ms. Alcala provides clear criteria for success, gathers information, analyzes it for common errors, provides rich, supportive feedback to her students, involves the students in their own learning, and does it all in a quick, and highly engaging activity. There are four specific instances that highlight formative strategies. I have timestamped them for reference.

1. Students learn as a class what the common misconceptions for the math concepts entail. Even if students are not having the misconception that is currently being addressed, they understand how to help one another as peers, and they also understand that "we all make mistakes." The goal is to uncover misconceptions and adjust accordingly. Mistakes are opportunities! (1:04)

2. Using a warm-up routine as a way to collect evidence means that Ms. Alcala can adjust her instruction immediately. This works for both what students can do well, and the areas that need more attention. We often neglect to highlight the ways in which formative strategies can save time. Leah does not need to worry that her students understand the distributive property, they are ready to move forward with this concept. (3:55)

3. Formative strategies help to level the playing field for all students. This warm-up activity engages every learner, without making students feel badly about making errors. Leah points out what students have done well before sharing the mistake. Simply by using the words, "My Favorite No," this teacher has taken the negativity out of learning from mistakes. (5:10)

4. Leah points out the way in which the students are successfully solving math problems, therefore the students have a much clearer understanding of what's expected. Leah's students are not spending time trying to figure out how to meet the criteria for success. The students are not surprised by what they know, and what they don't know, and neither is Ms. Alcala. (5:20)

Amazing. This video is my go-to choice for explaining how formative classroom strategies contribute to the effectiveness of schools.

Other Teaching Channel videos I use to illustrate the effective use of formative strategies are:

These are just a handful of my favorites. I suggest you try breaking them down for the strategies you see using the Notes feature, too.

"The best teachers constantly monitor what is happening to students as they set about learning, and they investigate when things do not proceed as planned or expected. They also reflect on their own practice so they might get better at ensuring that their students learn successfully," Stiggins, 2002.

Systematically eliciting evidence of student learning during the teaching process can provide invaluable information to teachers. By highlighting student thinking, and misconceptions, and gathering information from all students, teachers can use this representative evidence to better plan instruction based on an understanding of the entire class. Because formative assessment strategies have been shown in the research to improve students' in-class learning, many educators have adopted these strategies in order to raise their students' performances on accountability tests. In some cases, the research shows a gain of several additional months of learning each year when an intentional use of formative strategies has been implemented. Let's shift the focus from endless hours of test prep to teaching the curriculum with deep intention and plenty of student involvement in the process.
References:
Brookhart, S. (2008). Feedback that fits. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 54-59.

Hattie, J. & Timperly, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Journal of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.

Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do teachers need to know and do?, 89(2), 140-145.

Moss, C.M. & Brookhart, S.M. (2009). Advancing formative assessment in every classroom: A guide for instructional leaders. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Wiliam, D. (2008). Changing classroom practice. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 36-41.

Wiliam, D. (2011). Embedded formative assessment. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree

Stiggins, R. J. 2002. Assessment crisis: The absence of assessment FOR learning, Phi Delta Kappan, 83(10), 758-765.
Julia is a Founding Partner at Mind the Gaps, an educational consulting firm. Her background includes 20 years of working in public education. Julia is passionate about helping teachers provide feedback to their students, and supporting meaningful evaluation techniques which lead to increasing student learning. Julia has a B.S. in Education and Special Education from Lesley University, and M.Ed. in Mathematics Curriculum and Assessment from the University of Vermont, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Transformative Leadership program at the University of New England.

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Dial Up Your Formative Assessment Techniques

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In my role as assessment coach and consultant, I have had many conversations about the differences between formative assessment as a form of testing, and formative assessment strategies that become part of instructional pedagogy. A common misconception among educators is the use of formative assessment as a noun, when in fact the research frames formative assessment as a verb.