WestEd’s Formative Assessment Inter-Rater Reliability (FAIR) supports leaders, academic coaches and teachers to understand how teacher learning typically progresses as they develop expertise in formative assessment and to explore what students are doing to support their own learning using formative assessment practice. The course is designed to develop accurate and aligned observations of formative assessment practice.
Each course module provides multiple vignettes and videos that learners use to understand teacher formative assessment practice as aligned with key performance indicators. This provides a framework for interpreting evidence of current practice that strengthens many types of reflection practices, including teacher self-assessment, peer review, or engaging in an inquiry cycle with academic coaches.
A key component of the course is reflection through consensus tuning conversations with peers. Participants watch classroom videos or conduct in person observations and then through discussion, come to consensus on scores for each of the dimensions. This supports leaders to process what they see in classrooms and to calibrate observations of formative assessment practice within and across school sites.
“The rubrics have helped me to give teachers next steps or things to consider when giving feedback.”
School Principal
“I have noticed that using the rubrics help in how we can move learning forward. It also opens the door to us as school leadership having meaningful discussions on what we see in the moment and how it connects to the learning of Formative Assessment.”
School principal
“I found that I was focusing much more on the learning that took place. The rubrics really helped me to focus on key aspects of the lesson and what was really happening. Seeing students who were beginning to drive the discussion really stood out to me. How they are beginning to take an active role in the learning. I was less focused on what was going on as a whole in the class. I noticed that teachers also still struggle with a balance of their talking and the student talking.”
Academic Coach
Contact Us
To learn more, contact Nancy Gerzon at [email protected]