This introductory institute explores formative assessment as a process of eliciting, interpreting and using evidence to support learning. Teachers and leaders learn how to develop daily instructional routines through which teachers elicit visible evidence of student learning and interpret that evidence to support learning in the moment.
A primary focus of the institute is to support teachers to implement, early on in their formative assessment practice, strategies that engage students in using evidence themselves. Teachers and leaders explore written formative assessment cases and classroom videos to better understand how formative assessment, when used on a daily basis by teachers and students, increases student autonomy, self-regulation, motivation and agency.
During the institute, teacher teams, meeting in small groups, develop strategies to integrate daily formative assessment routines such as co-constructing success criteria, structuring student self-assessment and building capacity for students to provide effective feedback. Leaders engage in role-alike groups to explore implementation needs, hear from successful district and school leaders, and develop plans for site-based implementation plans for formative assessment.
Institute Goals
- Understand formative assessment as a process through which students and teachers elicit, interpret and use evidence to enhance learning, during the learning.
- Understand how evidence of learning can be intentionally gathered during the course of teaching and learning.
- Explore a range of strategies teachers use to elicit, interpret and use evidence of learning during lessons.
- Learn how teachers structure formative assessment routines to explicitly teach, model and support students to develop metacognition and self-regulation skills to support their own learning and that of their peers.
- (Leaders) Understand typical challenges and barriers to formative assessment adoption and implementation, and strategies to address and resolve them.
The Institute Model can take place virtually or in-person, across districts or within districts or schools.
Participant reflections (teacher):
- “I used to think that formative assessment was more concrete, but now I think formative assessment is more of a mindset.”
- “I used to think that formative assessment was for teacher use only, but now I think that it is meant for both student AND teacher to notice where the student/s are in their learning and where they need to go to enhance learning.”
- “I used to think evidence came in the form of tangible data of mastery, now I know evidence of learning can include all levels of progression.”
Participant reflections (leader):
- “I used to think just teachers and students needed to have a FA mindset, but now I think that leaders need to be grounded in and use FA strategies and have this mindset as well.”
- “I signed up for this professional development thinking I knew what formative assessment was. I found that it is so much deeper, and so much richer and has so much more value than the turn and talks, and the exit tickets and the checks for understanding that I thought it would be. I think the challenge for my school moving forward is that we are so ingrained in the belief that we have to cover all the curriculum, we have to address all of the standards and we have to prepare for the standardized tests, and we have to do well on state tests. This is really going to take a mindshift, a change in our thinking, to recognize that what we really need to teach our learners is how to learn. Then those skills will help them in all those other things.”
Contact Us
To learn more, contact Nancy Gerzon at [email protected]