Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Grade Level: Higher Education

Overview of Major Assessment Types in Standards-Based Instruction

This overview is designed to help state education agencies, local education agencies, schools, educators, partner organizations, and other stakeholders understand the differences between major assessment types in standards-based instruction. Formative, Diagnostic, Interim/Benchmark, and Summative assessments are included. This resource describes how these various assessments differ according to their definition, purpose, format, frequency of administration, and classroom […]

Supporting Formative Assessment for Deeper Learning: A Primer for Policymakers

This primer argues that effective formative assessment is essential to successfully implementing new college- and career-ready standards. It explains what formative assessment is, how it works in practice, and why it is critically important in fostering powerful pedagogy and 21st-century competencies. It then contrasts the purposes and uses of formative assessment with those of other […]

READi (Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction)

This resource highlights the work of the Strategic Literacy Initiative at WestEd, and its correlation to the goals and vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), through a collaborative study with the University of Illinois at Chicago and others from 2010-2015. READi (Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction) is engaging teachers to understand […]

An Initial Learning Progression in Chemical Design

This resource is one of a series of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-based projects funded by the National Science Foundation. It is a document from the collection at the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education, describing a two-year (2012-2014) exploratory project in which science educators at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the University […]

School Environment Listening Sessions Final Report

This report describes work conducted for the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education (WHIAIANE). In conjunction with tribal leaders and communities, WHIAIANE conducted a series of listening sessions in October and November 2014 across the United States. At these sessions, students, teachers, parents, and community members shared their AI/AN schooling experiences, […]