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How School Administrators Can Support and Promote Formative Assessment
Reflecting on the How I Know initiative in the Dallas Independent School District, Susan Villani writes about her work with administrators and educators to implement formative assessment practices into school cultures and practices. In this article, Villani focuses on the most powerful strategies that school administrators utilized to support implementation of formative assessment practices into educators’ instruction. Villani writes about five main leadership strategies:
- Learning about formative assessment so they could be leaders.
- Listening to the pilot teachers and students to find out what they need.
- Letting Go of a current way of doing something to make room for a new way.
- Lingering to observe and learn from each other.
- Lighting the Way by inviting other teachers to observe pilot classrooms.
As school leaders and educators consider how to implement, and eventually scale up, formative assessment as part of instructional culture, these leadership practices can be valuable considerations for developing action plans.