The TEACHER LEADER
as Assessment
THOMAS R. GUSKEY (EDITOR)
Cassandra Erkens
Katie White
Mandy Stalets
Tom Hierck
Tom Schimmer
Anthony
Garnet Hillman
Tim Brown
Sharon V. Kramer
Sarah Schuhl
R. Reibel
Joellen Killion
— S econd e dition
as Assessment The TEACHER LEADER
THOMAS R. GUSKEY (EDITOR)
With
Cassandra Erkens
Katie White
Mandy Stalets
Garnet Hillman
Tim Brown
Tom Hierck
Tom Schimmer
Sharon V. Kramer
Sarah Schuhl
Anthony R. Reibel
Joellen Killion
Copyright © 2009, 2025 by Solution Tree Press
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Names: Guskey, Thomas R., editor.
Title: The teacher as assessment leader / Editor: Thomas R. Guskey; Contributors: Cassandra Erkens, Katie White, Mandy Stalets, Garnet Hillman, Tim Brown, Tom Hierck, Tom Schimmer, Sharon V. Kramer, Sarah Schuhl, Anthony R. Reibel, Joellen Killion.
Description: Second edition. | Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024041318 (print) | LCCN 2024041319 (ebook) | ISBN 9781962188517 (paperback) | ISBN 9781962188524 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational tests and measurements. | Academic achievement--Testing. | Teachers.
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LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024041318
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Acknowledgments
Solution Tree Press would like to thank the following reviewers:
Lindsey Bingley
Literacy and Numeracy Lead
Foothills Academy Society Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Taylor Bronowicz
Sixth-Grade Mathematics Teacher
Albertville Intermediate School
Albertville, Alabama
Kelly Hilliard
GATE Mathematics Instructor NBCT
Darrell C. Swope Middle School Reno, Nevada
Jennifer Renegar
Data & Assessment Specialist Republic School District Republic, Missouri
Sheryl Walters
Senior School Assistant Principal Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment to download the free reproducibles in this book.
About the Editor
Thomas R. Guskey, PhD, is professor emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky, where he served as department chair, head of the Educational Psychology Area Committee, and president of the faculty council. He has been a visiting professor at ten other universities in the United States and a visiting scholar at universities in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Dr. Guskey began his career in education as a middle school teacher and earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago under the direction of Professor Benjamin S. Bloom. He served as an administrator in Chicago Public Schools before becoming the first director of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning, a U.S. research center.
Dr. Guskey is the author or editor of thirty award-winning books and more than three hundred book chapters, articles, and professional papers on educational measurement, evaluation, assessment, grading, and professional learning. His articles have appeared in prominent research journals, including the American Educational Research Journal , Educational Researcher, and the Review of Educational Research, as well as practitioner publications such as Education Week, Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, The Learning Professional , and School Administrator
He served on the policy research team of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future and on the task force to develop the Standards for Professional Learning. He also has been featured on the National Public Radio programs Talk of the Nation and Morning Edition.
Dr. Guskey has won numerous awards for his work in education. For his outstanding scholarship, he was named a fellow of the American Educational Research
Association, the association’s highest honor. He also received the association’s prestigious Relating Research to Practice Award. He was awarded the Contribution to the Field Award by Learning Forward, the Jason Millman Award by the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness, the Distinguished Achievement Award by the Association of Educational Publishers, and the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Perhaps most uniquely, in the 160year history of his undergraduate institution, Thiel College, he is the only graduate to receive the Outstanding Alumnus Award, be inducted into the Thiel College Athletics Hall of Fame, and be awarded an honorary doctorate degree.
Dr. Guskey’s work is dedicated to helping teachers and school leaders use quality educational research to help all their students learn well and gain the many valuable benefits of that success.
To learn more about Dr. Guskey’s work, visit http://tguskey.com or follow @tguskey on X.
To book Thomas R. Guskey for professional development, contact pd@Solution Tree.com.
Introduction
Thomas R. Guskey
Assessment is one of education’s greatest ironies. Decades of research show the importance of assessments as vital tools for improving student learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998a, 1998b; Bloom, Hastings, & Madaus, 1971; Murphy, Little, & Bjork, 2023). Careful studies also document that 40 to 50 percent of most teachers’ time is spent on assessment-related activities (McShane, 2022; Stiggins, 1991). Yet despite its importance and teachers’ extensive commitment of time to assessments, most teachers receive little training on effective assessment practices.
Reviews of teacher education programs show that the majority lack a comprehensive focus on any form of assessment literacy (Estaji, 2024; Klenowski & WyattSmith, 2014). Few teachers receive direct guidance on the use of formal classroom assessments—such as quizzes, unit tests, and course examinations—or informal assessments involving daily observations and regular checks for understanding. Rarely do prospective teachers learn about the administration and interpretation of results from district, state, provincial, or national standardized assessments (DeLuca, LaPointe-McEwan, & Luhanga, 2016; Pastore, 2023). For the most part, teachers are on their own to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to create valid and appropriate assessments, employ effective classroom assessment practices, accurately interpret assessment results, and use those results to guide improvements in student learning. We developed this book for the express purpose of helping teachers acquire these essential assessment skills and strategies.
Teachers’ Role in Assessments
Among the various forms of assessment used in schools today, the results from district, state, provincial, and national standardized assessments typically get the most public attention. They are the topic of numerous press reports and education blogs and a primary concern for school board members and state legislators. When these standardized assessments are well aligned with district, state, or provincial curricula, and when results are presented in ways that make sense to school leaders, teachers, and parents and families, they offer a variety of useful information (Tunnell, 2024). Unfortunately, evidence indicates this is rarely the case (Long, 2023).
Studies on the alignment of large-scale state assessments to state curriculum standards show that only about half of the curriculum standards’ content is tested on the corresponding grade-level assessments, and only about half of assessment content corresponds to the curriculum standards. Furthermore, between 17 and 27 percent of the content on the typical state assessment addresses topics not included in the corresponding state standards (Maroun & Tienken, 2024; Polikoff, Porter, & Smithson, 2011). In addition, few school leaders, teachers, or parents understand the true meaning of assessment results expressed in grade equivalents, stanines, or standard scores.
Other research indicates that the design and structure of most district or state standardized assessments are seldom driven by our knowledge base of what best helps students learn (Atchison, Garet, Smith, & Song, 2022; Ozan & Kıncal, 2018). In most cases, these assessments rarely help compensate for inadequacies in classroom assessments (for example, failure to address important curricular goals) or teachers’ lack of assessment literacy (for example, a focus on recall of content rather than application or transfer of content to new contexts). Instead, most district- and state-level assessment programs are driven primarily by politics and money.
The politics behind many district and state assessment programs is based mainly on fear and lack of trust (Carless, 2009). Legislators and policymakers fear that education systems in the United States are not keeping up with other developed nations. In comparison to other countries, the ranking of U.S. students’ education achievement continues to wane. Even in states where school graduation rates have risen, achievement levels have generally remained unchanged or have declined (Tucker, 2021).
Legislators and policymakers also don’t trust educators to make the changes necessary for improvement. This lack of trust prompts the need for accountability systems that are designed to initiate improvements by publicly reporting the scores of students
from different schools with the intent to embarrass low-scoring schools into making whatever changes might be necessary to ensure improvements (Stanford, 2023).
Paradoxically, a survey by the EdWeek Research Center (Stanford, 2023) finds that although nearly 80 percent of educators said they feel moderate or large amounts of pressure to have their students perform well on standardized assessments, only 25 percent believe that mandated state assessments provide useful information for the teachers in their school. In comparison, 74 percent said they find in-class, teachercreated formative assessments to be useful; 59 percent said unit assessments and final exams are useful; and 50 percent said diagnostic assessments created by teachers at the start of the year are useful (Stanford, 2023).
Research generally supports these teachers’ perspectives. Studies on the impact of assessments consistently show that teachers’ classroom assessments lead to the most significant improvements in student learning (Hanover Research, 2014; Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, & Black, 2004). Because these assessments tend to be better aligned with teachers’ learning goals and instructional activities, their results provide direct evidence of both student achievement and instructional effectiveness (Murphy et al., 2023; Torrance et al., 2005). Clearly, if our goal is to improve teachers’ instructional practices, students’ academic achievement, and other vital learning outcomes, such as students’ motivation, attitude toward learning, and self-regulation skills, our primary focus needs to be on in-class, teacher-created formative assessments (Ismail, Rahul, Patra, & Rezvani, 2022).
The History of Formative Assessment
Although the use of assessments as an integral part of the instructional process can be traced to the writings of early educators such as John Amos Comenius, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Johann Friedrich Herbart (Bloom, 1974), most modern interpretations are based on the pioneering work of Benjamin S. Bloom.
In observing teachers across different grade levels, Bloom (1968) notes striking consistency in their approach to instruction. Most teachers first organized the concepts and skills they wanted students to acquire into learning units that typically involved about a week or two of instructional time. Following initial instruction on the unit, the teachers administered a brief quiz based on the unit’s learning goals. For most teachers, this quiz served mainly as an evaluation device to verify students’ level of competence and to assign grades. They administered, scored, and returned the quiz to students; reported the scores in a gradebook; and began instruction on the next unit, where they repeated the same process.
Instead of serving as an evaluation device that signified to students the end of learning in the unit, Bloom (1968) recommends this assessment be used as an integral part of the instructional process to provide students and teachers with feedback on learning progress. To emphasize this purpose, he suggests calling it a formative assessment, a term originated by Michael Scriven (1967) to describe a more informative type of program evaluation. Formative assessments identify for students and teachers precisely what students learned well and where they need to improve (Bloom et al., 1971; Bloom, Madaus, & Hastings, 1981).
Bloom (1968) also recognizes that diagnostic feedback alone does little to improve students’ learning unless it is accompanied by prescriptive guidance and direction from teachers on how to make those improvements—what he labeled corrective activities. Bloom (1968) stresses, however, that correctives are not reteaching. Simply repeating a process that has already shown not to work for these students is unlikely to yield better results the second time around. Rather, the correctives must present the unit’s concepts and skills and engage students in learning in ways that are qualitatively different from the initial instruction. Bloom (1968) further recommends that for students who performed well on the formative assessment and for whom the initial instruction was effective, teachers provide exciting and rewarding learning opportunities that extend their learning—what he described as enrichment activities
Bloom (1968, 1971) labels this combination of formative assessments followed by feedback, correctives, and enrichment activities as mastery learning. He believed that teachers who followed this process might be able to help nearly all students learn well and truly master the grade-level or course learning goals (Bloom, 1981; Guskey, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c).
Mastery Learning Remains Our Foundation
Few ideas in education have had more profound influence on teachers’ classroom assessment practice than mastery learning, especially its use of formative assessments to provide feedback on students’ learning progress (Guskey, 2023a, 2023b). Since Bloom (1968, 1971) initially proposed using assessments formatively as learning tools, rather than as mere evaluation devices to certify students’ competence, formative assessments have become an integral part of the instructional procedures of teachers at every level of education (Heritage, 2021; Zimmerman & DiBenedetto, 2008).
Many writers have expounded on Bloom’s (1968, 1971) ideas about the diagnostic and prescriptive properties of feedback, describing how the information students receive from formative assessments can be used to document learning progress and to
guide the correction of learning errors (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Smith, Lipnevich, & Guskey, 2023). In addition, numerous studies have verified the positive effects of formative assessments on student learning (Kingston & Nash, 2011, 2015). However, the ways in which teachers use the feedback from formative assessments to guide improvements in their instructional strategies have received far less attention.
Despite the extensive research confirming mastery learning’s consistently positive effects on student learning (Elaldı, 2016; Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Drowns, 1990a, 1990b; Miles, 2010), the use of classroom formative assessments to improve student learning has not yet become common practice. Nevertheless, examples of teachers using formative assessments to enhance student learning can be found in kindergarten through college and university classes throughout the world (Klecker & Chapman, 2008; Wiliam, 2018; Yıldıran, 2010). Many teachers learned about formative assessments through the work of Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998b), who verify what Bloom and his colleagues told us decades before: Regular formative assessments paired with well-planned corrective activities offer one of the most powerful tools teachers can use to help students learn well and gain the many benefits of that learning success (Guskey, 2023a, 2023b).
Our goal in writing this book is to offer teachers practical ideas on how to make the best and most effective use of classroom formative assessments and how to lead others in this effort. Our hope is to extend the ideas described in the first edition of The Teacher as Assessment Leader (Guskey, 2009), summarize the results of the most current research on the topic, and offer new insights and practical suggestions on how to implement those ideas.
Our Framework
To provide consistency in the structure of each chapter and to make it easier for readers to compare and integrate the ideas presented, we asked chapter authors to address the following questions.
• What problems of practice are the ideas you recommend intended to solve?
• What research evidence supports the implementation of your ideas?
• What concerns, obstacles, and constraints are schools or districts likely to face in implementation?
• What are the direct benefits to students? What evidence confirms these benefits?
• What have you learned from your experiences with implementation? What adaptations seem crucial due to contextual differences at each site?
• How have you broadened and extended your ideas? What is their place in the future of education?
We also asked authors to confirm that the citations they offered to support their ideas were evidence-based research studies or systematic program evaluations— not books or blogs based on someone’s opinions or personal experiences. Our goal is to ensure that the ideas we offer are supported by valid research evidence, not simply hearsay or intuition.
Our primary goal in developing this new edition of The Teacher as Assessment Leader is to offer clear directions for action that are truly evidence based , combined with practical strategies that teachers can use to achieve significant improvements in student learning.
Chapter Summaries
We begin with Cassandra Erkens’s chapter, “Leading the Assessment Revolution From Within.” Cassandra describes the crucial underpinnings of what it means to be a true assessment leader, collaboratively building a learning organization in which teachers study and refine their craft. She then outlines how aspiring assessment leaders can use action research to provide experiential learning opportunities for teachers to evaluate the impact that promising assessment practices, strategies, protocols, and tools have on student learning.
In the next chapter, “Harvesting Assessment Evidence to Yield Effective Responses,” Katie White shows how examining assessment evidence to interpret thinking and skill development while they are in progress gives teachers valuable information about students’ strengths, needs, and the root causes of those needs. She goes on to outline how assessment leaders can use the analysis and interpretation of this evidence as a catalyst for making decisions that ensure instruction is increasingly impactful.
Mandy Stalets and Garnet Hillman’s chapter, “Assessing Beyond the Labels,” focuses on assessment as an active, iterative, and responsive process. Building on the distinction between the use of formative and summative assessment processes in the classroom, they describe how true assessment leadership requires a foundation in assessment literacy and a willingness to apply that knowledge in ways that meet the needs of the highly diverse learners in schools today.
In his chapter, “Sharing Leadership to Align Assessment Practices Across the School,” Tim Brown highlights three key changes that lead to significant improvements in student learning. These changes include (1) using assessments as instructional tools, (2) guiding teachers’ influence on students’ sense of academic self-efficacy, and (3) recognizing the importance of shared leadership. Tim contends that although these changes often bring moments of grief and despair, they can lead to a more positive learning environment for all students.
Tom Hierck’s chapter, “Using Data as a Flashlight, Not a Hammer, to Illuminate Evidence That Matters,” describes how true assessment leaders use their knowledge of effective assessment design to guide teachers’ efforts in analyzing assessment data. He emphasizes that true assessment leaders initiate these discussions rather than waiting for some external source to explain what the assessment evidence means. This helps ensure that teachers make crucial decisions about what to do next and remain instructionally agile in their efforts to help all students learn at high levels.
In “Developing Self-Regulatory Learners Through Assessment,” Tom Schimmer outlines the challenges teachers face in helping students become proactive learners who drive, manage, and monitor their own learning. He explains that when students are passive recipients of the knowledge bestowed by teachers, they tend to see learning as an arduous task that offers little personal benefit. Tom then presents strategies teachers can use to help students take charge of their learning, become active decision makers, guide their own efforts in the learning process, and develop responsibility for their learning success.
Next, Sharon V. Kramer and Sarah Schuhl contribute “Designing Assessments to Accelerate Learning.” In this chapter, they explain how teachers can use welldesigned assessments to gather the information they need to accelerate student learning to grade level and beyond. Sharon and Sarah offer practical examples showing how teachers can use assessment data to teach grade-level standards to all students while also teaching prior skills to those students who have not yet mastered them. Their idea is that these strategies inform and enhance the learning process for students, teachers, and the entire collaborative team.
Anthony R. Reibel’s chapter, “Approaching Learning and Assessment as a Subtle Curator,” describes how acting as a subtle curator allows assessment leaders to guide students through a more personalized educational journey. He warns that teachers often exert too much control over the learning process, when learning is ultimately the responsibility of the student. To counter this, he advises that teachers make learning a student-driven experience in which the teacher’s primary role is to offer unobtrusive guidance.
In the final chapter, “Leading the Way to Student Success,” Joellen Killion explains how assessment leaders help colleagues expand and refine their content and pedagogical knowledge, skills, dispositions, practices, and assessment literacy. Such leaders facilitate teacher collaboration about not only the design and implementation of effective assessment practices but also the analysis of assessment results to improve instructional practices and student learning outcomes. Joellen argues that making these practices a routine part of teachers’ work strengthens the quality of instruction and assessments, leading to improvements in student success.
Chapter Differences
In reviewing these chapters, some readers may be troubled by inconsistencies in the vocabulary and terminology different authors use. For example, what some authors call targets others call benchmarks or steps. What some refer to as standards others label competencies, outcomes, or learning goals. And while some authors consider levels of mastery and proficiency to be the same, others view them as quite different.
There are writers in education today who contend that these differences are important. Some even devote entire articles or book chapters to explaining their opinions on these differences (see Hilger, 2023; Schaef, 2016). With few exceptions, however, we find these opinion-based arguments to be distracting encumbrances rather than edifying clarifications.
Our view is based on the ideas set forth by Ralph W. Tyler (1949) in his classic book, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Tyler (1949) stresses that the first essential step in effective teaching is to clearly articulate what students should learn and be able to do. The second essential step is to identify what evidence best reflects how well students learned those things. What label you attach to those things—be it standards, competencies, objectives, outcomes, or goals —doesn’t matter. What matters is the clarity that results from purposefully addressing these two essential steps.
Therefore, we urge you to look beyond these differences in vocabulary and terminology to the value of each author’s ideas and how those ideas can be implemented (Guskey, 2003). Don’t let minor discrepancies in terminology detract from the importance of those ideas. Distinctions in terminology are helpful when they facilitate communication, but they should never be an obstacle to understanding important ideas. If necessary, simply translate the authors’ words to fit the vocabulary that you and the educators with whom you work currently use.
In addition, the nature of the issues we discuss is complicated, and the authors have a variety of responses to those issues. Please keep in mind, however, that improving assessment practices and the use of assessment results is a complex process. Although
the authors address these complexities in different ways, we believe you will be impressed by the thoughtfulness of their insights, the diversity of their perspectives on improvement, and the breadth of their proposed solutions.
To take full advantage of the benefits of assessment for learning requires a diverse set of strategies and activities—both formal and informal—that must be adapted to the unique contextual characteristics of each district, school, and classroom. What works in one setting may not work equally well in another. Successful assessment leaders work to make those adaptations, keeping in mind the critical aspects of innovations to maintain program fidelity. Just as a one-size-fits-all approach does not work with all students, it does not work with all teachers, either.
Our Goal
Our goal in writing this book is to offer teachers practical ideas on how to make the best and most effective use of classroom formative assessments and how to lead others in that effort. Equally important, we want to provide ideas supported by trustworthy research evidence rather than speculations or persuasively argued opinions. The stakes in education improvement are far too high and the consequences of failure far too serious to trust what we do to unsubstantiated opinions, regardless of how convincingly they are presented or how reasonable they may seem.
Although the authors of these chapters offer highly divergent perspectives on how to best make those improvements, their ideas coalesce around three major themes. The first is that assessment leaders must focus on improving all teachers’ assessment literacy. Every author acknowledges the need for teachers at every education level to understand the characteristics of high-quality classroom assessments and how they can use those assessments to provide feedback to both students and teachers for improving learning success.
The second theme is that while the feedback from classroom formative assessment is essential to improving learning, alone, it is insufficient. The most vital aspect of feedback is what teachers and students do with it. In other words, it is not the assessment results, per se, that matter, but what happens after the assessments that determines the effects on student learning.
Teachers certainly need to ensure their classroom assessments are high-quality instruments that gather relevant and valid information on student learning. But, as the authors of these chapters stress, the most vital aspects of assessment literacy are how teachers use the feedback from classroom formative assessments to refine and enhance the quality of their instruction and how they help students use the feedback to remedy their learning errors and improve their performance.
The third major theme is that assessment leaders must have a deep understanding of the change process and the kinds of support teachers need to successfully implement meaningful improvements in their assessment practices. Effective assessment leaders know how to facilitate and sustain productive collaboration and how to guarantee a positive, safe, and supportive professional learning environment. They know how to build on the expertise shared by professional colleagues and how to find solutions to problems when that shared expertise proves inadequate or insufficient. Even the best and most valuable ideas for improvement will make no difference if their implementation is not supported and sustained. Assessment leaders help guide teachers as they adapt new ideas to their setting’s unique contextual characteristics while maintaining consistency and fidelity to the ideas in implementation efforts.
The hope the authors of these chapters and I share is that the ideas and strategies presented in these pages will prompt you to action. The Next Steps sections at the end of each chapter offer specific ideas on how teacher assessment leaders can get started. The overwhelmingly positive research support for using high-quality classroom formative assessments to improve student learning makes it imperative that their use becomes common practice in modern classrooms at every education level. Far too many students will be lost if we don’t. They will be abandoned by an education system that holds the key to their success but fails to use it.
We must press hard for the development of teacher assessment leaders who are prepared to guide the broad-based implementation of these ideas, armed with the established knowledge base of effective practice. Although the precise path each teacher leader takes in these challenging endeavors may be different, we believe that such action is necessary to ensure that all students learn well and gain the many benefits of that success. Our hope is that this book provides guidance and inspiration to those willing to take on that challenge.
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Sharon V. Kramer, PhD, knows firsthand the demands and rewards of working in a PLC. As an author and a leader in the field, she emphasizes the importance of creating and using quality assessments as a continual part of the learning process. Sharon served as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction of Kildeer Countryside School District 96 in Illinois. In this position, she ensured all students were prepared to enter Adlai E. Stevenson High School, a Model PLC created by Dr. Richard DuFour. A seasoned educator, Sharon has taught in elementary and middle school classrooms and served as principal, director of elementary education, assistant superintendent, and university professor.
In addition to her PLC experience, Sharon has completed assessment training by Rick Stiggins, Steve Chappuis, Larry Ainsworth, and the Center for Performance Assessment (now the Leadership and Learning Center). She has presented a variety of assessment workshops at institutes and summits and for state departments of education. Sharon has also worked with school districts across the United States to determine their power standards and develop assessments. She has been a Comprehensive School Reform consultant to schools that have received grant funding to implement PLCs as their Whole-School Reform model, and her customized PLC coaching academies have empowered school and district leadership teams across the United States. Sharon has done priority schools work with U.S. schools, utilizing the PLC continuous improvement model to raise student achievement levels in underperforming schools and districts.
Sharon has presented at conferences across the United States sponsored by National Staff Development Council, National Association for Gifted Children, American Federation of Teachers, and California State University. She has been instrumental in facilitating professional development initiatives focused on standards-based learning and teaching, improved understanding and utilization of assessment data, and interventions and differentiation that meet the needs of all learners, and she has strengthened efforts to ensure K–12 literacy.
Sharon is the author of How to Leverage PLCs for School Improvement and coauthor of School Improvement for All: A How-to Guide for Doing the Right Work ; Acceleration for All: A How-To Guide for Overcoming Learning Gaps ; Best Practices at Tier 2: Supplemental Interventions for Additional Student Support, Elementary ; and Best Practices at Tier 2: Supplemental Interventions for Additional Student Support, Secondary. In addition, she served as editor of Charting the Course for Leaders: Lessons From Priority Schools in a PLC at Work and Charting the Course for Collaborative
Teams: Lessons From Priority Schools in a PLC at Work. She also contributed to the books It’s About Time: Planning Interventions and Extensions in Elementary School ; The Teacher as Assessment Leader ; and The Collaborative Teacher: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community.
Sharon earned a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from Loyola University Chicago.
To learn more about Sharon’s work, follow @DrKramer1 on X.
Sarah Schuhl is an educational coach and international consultant specializing in mathematics, professional learning communities, common formative and summative assessments, priority school improvement, and RTI. She has worked in schools as a secondary mathematics teacher, high school instructional coach (all subjects), and K–12 mathematics specialist. Sarah was instrumental in the creation of a PLC in the Centennial School District 28J in Oregon, helping teachers make large gains in student achievement. She earned the district’s Triple C Staff Recognition Award in 2012.
Sarah fosters learning through large-group professional development and smallgroup coaching in districts and schools. Her work focuses on strengthening the teaching and learning of mathematics by having teachers learn from one another as they work effectively as a collaborative team in a PLC and by striving to ensure that every student learns through assessment practices, instruction, and intervention. Her practical approach includes working with teachers and administrators to implement assessments for learning, analyze data, collectively respond to student learning, and create a guaranteed and viable curriculum.
Related to priority schools, Sarah coauthored Acceleration for All: A How-To Guide for Overcoming Learning Gaps and School Improvement for All: A How-To Guide for Doing the Right Work, as well as contributed to two anthologies related to leadership and collaborative teams in priority schools. Additionally, for RTI at Work™, she coauthored Taking Action: A Handbook for RTI at Work, Second Edition
For Mathematics at Work, Sarah coauthored Engage in the Mathematical Practices: Strategies to Build Numeracy and Literacy With K–5 Learners, as well as the Every Student Can Learn Mathematics series and the Mathematics at Work Plan Book with Timothy D. Kanold. She was also coauthor and editor of the Mathematics Unit Planning in a PLC at Work books and contributed to the National Council
of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM) publication NCSM Essential Actions: Framework for Leadership in Mathematics Education.
Previously, Sarah served as a member and chair of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) editorial panel for the journal Mathematics Teacher and secretary of NCSM. Her work with the Oregon Department of Education includes designing mathematics assessment items, test specifications and blueprints, and rubrics for achievement-level descriptors. She has also been a contributing writer for a middle school mathematics series and an elementary mathematics intervention program.
Sarah earned a bachelor of science in mathematics from Eastern Oregon University and a master of science in mathematics education from Portland State University.
To learn more about Sarah’s work, follow @SSchuhl on X.
To book Sharon V. Kramer or Sarah Schuhl for professional development, contact pd@SolutionTree.com.
Designing Assessments to Accelerate Learning
Sharon V. Kramer and Sarah Schuhl
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
When assessments are administered for the sole purpose of issuing a grade without the analysis necessary to respond to misconceptions at the point of need, students can be at risk of missing essential knowledge and skills to move forward in their learning. Sometimes, a student earns an A even without learning an essential standard or skill. Other times, a student earns an A but with belowgrade-level standards, making the A miscommunication. In both cases, since gradelevel learning did not occur, students need additional supports to learn and may even eventually form gaps in learning that require intervention. More commonly, students may earn a D or F and—unless the teacher knows why and provides additional targeted supports—a gap forms. Over time, these gaps in learning can be difficult to overcome. The grade is not always an accurate reflection of learning grade-level standards.
We have found that schools too often respond to learning gaps shown in assessment data with remediation—meaning that during core instruction, students who are not yet learning grade-level standards are taught in a group below grade level with the intent to “catch them up,” while the rest of the students are learning gradelevel standards. Unfortunately, those students tracked into remediation groups rarely escape remediation from one year to the next and are perpetually taught below
grade level (TNTP [The New Teacher Project], 2018). Research shows that students benefit from being grouped with others at different levels of grade-level learning: “Heterogeneous ability grouping in small-group discussions is more beneficial for high-level comprehension than homogeneous ability grouping, with low-ability students struggling more in homogeneous groups” (Murphy et al., 2017).
When assessment practices are done well, teachers can use them to gather the information necessary to accelerate student learning to grade level and beyond. Teachers work to teach grade-level standards to all students as well as prior skills students have not yet learned. The data from each assessment feed the learning process of the students, teachers, and collaborative team (Hamilton et al., 2009).
Assessment has the potential to inform instruction in every classroom every day. Teachers, as drivers of student learning, need to be assessment leaders to know how best to gather information about student learning so they can effectively respond to student learning needs and ensure every student learns at grade level or beyond. Assessment is at the center of the learning process and is the key to accelerating learning for all students. Attempting to teach without data is like operating in the dark with assumptions and feelings that are not always grounded in fact. Assessment is the heartbeat of accelerated learning, yet we have seen that it is too often used to track and level students to below-grade-level expectations (Mattos et al., 2025). In this chapter, we define acceleration, explain why assessments are critical to acceleration, and show how teacher leaders create and use assessments for acceleration.
What Is Acceleration?
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and since it has subsided, there have been downward trends in student learning. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show a decline in reading and mathematics achievement from 2019 to 2022—in many cases to levels not seen since 2012 (Irwin et al., 2022; Nation’s Report Card, 2023). State assessment results reported a decline in reading and mathematics scores after the pandemic, and though some states showed an increase in 2023 from the 2022 data, states are not yet showing scores at or above levels from the 2019 state assessment data (COVID-19 School Data Hub, 2023). Too many students are not demonstrating learning at grade level or above, which prompts a need for acceleration.
As we mentioned previously, in the past, schools often addressed learning gaps with remediation , meaning they assessed student needs and then met students at
that point of need to continue instruction (Pepper Rollins, 2014). Unfortunately, remediation often results in students finishing a school year still not at grade level and sometimes even with a larger gap to the next grade level than they had at the start of the year (TNTP, 2018). For the Opportunity Myth report, TNTP (2018) interviewed and observed students in rural, suburban, and urban settings and concluded that students need four key resources in their daily learning if they are to learn at grade or course level and successfully advance to the next grade or course: (1) grade-appropriate assignments, (2) strong instruction, (3) deep engagement, and (4) high expectations. Remediation does not include grade-appropriate assignments, nor does it involve teachers having high expectations (meeting grade-level standards or above) for every student.
Instead of perpetuating the common practice of remediation, what might teacher leaders do?
Acceleration, unlike remediation, focuses on students learning grade- or course-level content every day during core instruction and targeted prior knowledge standards they haven’t yet learned that directly align to the standard being taught in class. Teachers often address prior knowledge standards during small-group or differentiated instruction during a lesson or teach them during an additional time of day designed for targeted and specific interventions (Kramer & Schuhl, 2023; TNTP, 2021). The Council of the Great City Schools (2020) as well as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCTM & NCSM, 2020) stress the importance of students learning grade- or course-level standards every day with targeted and specific interventions related to prior knowledge standards. John Hattie’s research summaries show an effect size of 0.93, or roughly a 32 percentile gain in learning, for integrating prior knowledge with grade-level knowledge (Marzano, 2009; Visible Learning Meta X , 2023). One study related to acceleration used data from the online mathematics platform Zearn (www.zearn.org) that was gathered from over two million students in over one hundred thousand elementary schools and found that students who learned using an acceleration model rather than a remediation model struggled less and learned more; this was especially true for students of color and those from low-income households (TNTP, 2021). Opportunities to accelerate learning require robust instruction at grade level with enhanced supports targeted to each student’s needs (Bakshi & Steiner, 2020; Pepper Rollins, 2014).
Over time, our work with acceleration in schools has revealed the importance of focusing on grade- or course-level essential standards every day in core instruction
(beginning on the first day of school), as well as designating a specific time in the schedule for robust supports to bring all students to grade level and beyond. This structure fits a multitiered system of support or the RTI at Work™ process. In the RTI at Work process, Tier 1 addresses core instruction of grade-level essential standards, Tier 2 provides additional time in the day for team-targeted interventions and extensions, and Tier 3 is yet another time during the school day for students to engage in learning standards well below grade level (often with specialists or as part of a pullout; Mattos et al., 2025). When accelerating learning, the time for additional supports (Tier 2) in the master schedule is devoted to teaching students the prerequisite skills aligned to the grade-level standard being taught in class. When over half of students need Tier 3 supports, the additional time of the day devoted to Tier 2 interventions may need to address foundational skills until students begin to accelerate their learning. We call this practice the vitamin approach.
The Glendale Elementary School District (GESD) in Arizona committed to gradelevel learning every day and scheduled a forty-five-minute block of time every day for targeted supports. Every student is included in the vitamin approach because it is designed to meet each student’s needs and grow and strengthen learning, just as vitamins grow and strengthen a person physically. Schools in GESD focused their targeted support time on literacy, which their data showed was the greatest need. Students were assigned to a specific skill or comprehension group based on their assessment results for approximately two weeks and then were reassessed to move on to the next level of learning. Students used a data tracker to record their progress, and teachers tracked data to group and regroup students along the way. Giving every student a vitamin is a shared responsibility with an all-hands-on-deck approach. In GESD, this process was developed when it became clear that reteaching at the start of the year or teaching below-grade-level standards did not accelerate student learning. With the vitamin approach and daily grade-level instruction, the result has been more students reaching grade-level reading, which has made learning the grade-level standards possible.
Whether a school utilizes the vitamin approach or something similar, the key to accelerating learning is to focus on grade-level learning from day one—and every day thereafter—with robust, targeted, specific supports to address prerequisite learning. Sometimes, schools need to address foundational skills schoolwide at first, though the goal is to eventually use the intervention time in the master schedule for Tier 2 supports. To be targeted and specific, and to monitor and celebrate growth in learning at grade level, the data that teachers gather from assessments are critical.
Accelerating learning cannot be done with every standard; teachers must focus on the standards most essential to learning in a grade level or course for future success.
Assessment leaders help determine what is most critical for students to learn and how to gather the information related to student learning to inform next steps in instruction and engage students in articulating what they have learned and not yet learned. They navigate embedding prior knowledge standards into grade-level units instead of reteaching prior knowledge standards at the start of the year before engaging in grade-level learning. They lead the charge in emphasizing grade-level standards in core instruction while using data from assessments to simultaneously accelerate student learning, both in core instruction and supplemental interventions.
Why Are Assessments Critical to Acceleration?
There are many types of assessments—national assessments, state or provincial assessments, district assessments, team common end-of-unit assessments, team common mid-unit assessments, and teacher classroom formative assessments that take place during daily lessons, to name a few. Each assessment serves a unique purpose and provides learning data that teachers—and sometimes students—can learn from. Too often, teachers and students see assessments as an event rather than a part of the learning process. When used as part of the learning process, the valuable instructional minutes spent administering any common assessment provide the information needed to strengthen instruction and accelerate student learning. When focusing on accelerating learning, we call assessment days show-what-you-know days, meaning that we use assessments formatively, and students will show themselves what they have learned or not learned yet and act on their results—and teachers will do the same (Kramer & Schuhl, 2023; Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2021).
Meeting the needs of every student is larger than any one teacher. Hattie’s work concludes that the single greatest influence on student learning is when teachers build collective teacher efficacy, with an effect size of 1.34 (Visible Learning Meta X , 2023). Through the PLC at Work process, teachers build collective teacher efficacy when they clarify the essential standards students are learning, use common assessment data to analyze instructional practices and student learning needs, and respond with team interventions and extensions to the data (DuFour et al., 2024; Sigurðardóttir, 2010; Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017). In the process, teachers and students gain some insight about student growth through district or progressmonitoring assessments, but they learn the most from frequent common assessments (mid-unit and end-of-unit) and daily formative assessments during lessons. These
more frequent measurements allow teachers to respond diagnostically to student learning at that point with grade-level standards in mind.
In the districts or schools with which we are working to accelerate learning, we have observed that more effective student learning takes place when teachers work in collaborative teams. Together, they focus on grade- or course-level essential standards and learn from one another how best to engage students in learning those standards during instruction with shared ideas for teaching aligned prior knowledge skills through differentiation and small-group learning. It is not easy to accelerate learning, and we find that teachers are sometimes very anxious to teach grade-level standards when students are missing prior knowledge skills. To begin the work, teachers create common assessments that focus the team on what students need to learn and how students will demonstrate that learning. The common assessment results provide the learning information that teachers and students need to continue growing instructional practices and student learning, thus making assessments part of a student’s learning story instead of their judge, measure, and record story.
How Do Teacher Leaders Create and Use Assessments for Acceleration?
Common assessments provide critical feedback to teachers and teams about effective instructional practices and student learning (Darling-Hammond, Flook, Cook-Harvey, Barron, & Osher, 2020; NCTM & NCSM, 2020). Hattie shares that feedback has the potential to considerably accelerate student learning when it shows students what they understand, what they still need to understand, and how to move forward in that learning (effect size = 0.52; Visible Learning Meta X , 2023).
When teacher leaders, working in collaborative teams, design common assessments for acceleration, we have found that they need to ask themselves the following two questions to generate effective feedback.
1. What will we learn about student thinking because we are giving this assessment?
2. How will we and the students act on the results of this assessment to accelerate learning?
Team leaders are sometimes the lead facilitators for each collaborative team when designing common assessments, but we consider every teacher to be a leader in the process of clarifying what students are learning, engaging in the creation of common assessments, and determining a targeted and specific intervention or extension plan
when students have not yet or have already learned. As such, the key recommendations for using assessments to accelerate the learning that follows are important for every teacher on the collaborative team because every teacher is both a learner and a leader. These recommendations include creating a team calendar; giving a preassessment; designing and giving common assessments; reassessing as needed; involving students in learning from their assessments; and formatively assessing in class with immediate feedback.
Create a Team Calendar for Learning
To collectively plan for accelerated learning during first-best instruction in a unit, the team creates a calendar and determines when they will give each short common mid-unit assessment (also called a common formative assessment, or CFA) on specific targets and when they will give the common end-of-unit assessment on standards. Ideally, teachers will never teach for more than ten days without collectively checking on student learning through either a common mid-unit or end-of-unit assessment (Kramer & Schuhl, 2017, 2023). The goal is to accelerate student learning to grade level and beyond by quickly and intentionally responding as a team when students demonstrate that they have not yet learned essential standards or the targets within essential standards.
Our acceleration work with teams has shown us the importance of teams preplanning for intervention when creating their unit calendar (see figure 7.1, page 144) instead of continuing to add days to units and then running out of time in the school year to teach some essential standards. Teams can plan for a flex day after they have gathered and analyzed common assessment data to allow time for the use of smallgroup stations or for deploying and shuffling students by targeted need to accelerate learning. They identify the grade-level target for each lesson and prior knowledge to address for more informative daily formative assessment.
Much of the prior knowledge in the calendar in figure 7.1 comes from standards in sixth grade. The multiplication and division number talks are designed to take five to ten minutes at the start of class to teach students fluency strategies for multiplication and division facts. Number talks promote students learning strategies from one another while generating the answers (from grades 3 to 5 and directly tied to the mathematics used in proportional reasoning). These numeracy skills could also be standards addressed with a vitamin approach during an alternate time of the school day.
9/8
9/15
I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning.
Grade-level target: Identify proportional relationships using graphs.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Graph points on a coordinate plane.
9/22 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
Grade-level target: Identify the constant of proportionality in a table or graph.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Determine the unit rate for a ratio from a ratio table.
9/7
9/14
I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning.
Grade-level target: Identify proportional relationships using ratio tables.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Create a ratio table to generate equivalent ratios.
9/21 Flex day to accelerate learning to target in CFA 1 (Prior knowledge or grade level, as needed)
9/6
9/5
Preassessment for unit 2
• Unit rate
• Ratio word problem
• Ratio table
• Equivalent fractions
• Graph points on a coordinate plane
*Continue unit 1 learning
9/13
I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning.
Grade-level target: Identify and generate equivalent ratios.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Create a ratio table to generate equivalent ratios.
9/20 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
Grade-level target: Identify the constant of proportionality in a table or graph.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Determine the unit rate for a ratio from a ratio table.
9/12
Start unit 2: Proportional reasoning and graphs
I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning.
Grade-level target: Identify and generate equivalent ratios.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Identify and generate equivalent fractions using fraction tiles and double number lines.
9/19 CFA 1 I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning. Prior knowledge: Determine the unit rate for a ratio.
9/11
9/18
I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning.
Grade-level target: Identify proportional relationships using graphs.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Graph (proportional relationships) given values in a table.
9/29 CFA 2 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions. Prior knowledge: Show a graph of a situation and have students explain the meaning of points on the graph in context.
9/28 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
9/27 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
9/26 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
9/25 I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Station day: Identify the constant of proportionality from a table, graph, equation, or description. Each station has a different representation. One small group station could be prior knowledge learning.
Grade-level target: Identify the constant of proportionality in descriptions.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Grade-level target: Identify the constant of proportionality in an equation.
Grade-level target: Identify the constant of proportionality in an equation.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Write an equation to match a word problem.
Prior knowledge: Create a table for a (proportional) equation to find the unit rate.
Prior knowledge: Create a table for a (proportional) equation to find the unit rate.
10/6
Common end-of-unit assessment for unit 2 I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning. I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions. I can represent proportional relationships using equations.
10/5 Review day: Games or stations I can decide if two quantities are proportional and explain my reasoning. I can identify the constant of proportionality using tables, graphs, equations, and descriptions. I can represent proportional relationships using equations.
10/4 I can represent proportional relationships using equations. Grade-level target: Write equations for proportional relationships.
10/3 Flex day to accelerate learning to target in CFA 2 (Prior knowledge or grade level, as needed)
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks Prior knowledge: Determine the unit rate from a ratio table or a graph.
10/2
I can represent proportional relationships using equations.
Grade-level target: Explain the meaning of points on a graph of a proportional relationship, including (0, 0) and (1, r ) for unit rate.
Warm-up: Multiplication and division number talks
Prior knowledge: Given a table for a proportional relationship, identify the unit rate.
Figure 7.1: Grade 7 example of a unit calendar for accelerating learning.
Give a Preassessment
It is difficult to accelerate learning if teachers do not know students’ level of prior knowledge or readiness to learn an essential grade-level standard. Sometimes, a preassessment is not necessary because teachers already have the information they need from previous units of study during the year. Other times, they do need additional information, as shown in figure 7.1 (page 144). The goal of a preassessment is not to simply show growth from an initial point in the unit to the end of the unit, especially when that information is already known. Preassessments used solely to show that students did not know the concepts and skills at the start of the unit but know them at the end do not tend to grow student learning (Callahan, 2012; Ochsendorf & Pyke, 2007). In fact, we have found such a use of preassessments to be a waste of an instructional day when that valuable time is necessary to accelerate learning. Rather, because teachers use instructional minutes to give each preassessment and the preassessment should inform the student’s learning story, the information they glean from the preassessment should target prior knowledge standards and be immediately addressed as part of daily instruction (Guskey, 2018).
Therefore, if giving a preassessment, consider making it short (about fifteen to twenty minutes at the most) and designing it to give the team information about whether students have learned the prior knowledge standards they need to learn the current essential standards, which is critical information to accelerate learning. The preassessment indicates the readiness level of each student. The information related to prior knowledge standards informs each teacher’s daily instruction, which incorporates grade-level and prior knowledge learning. Teachers have the information necessary to create any small groups or team interventions they need to frontload and grow student learning to grade level. Most often at the primary level, preassessments may be observational in nature and part of a student’s learning experience rather than an event taken from instructional minutes.
As assessment leaders, when designing a preassessment to gather the evidence to accelerate learning most effectively, teachers should consider using the preassessment plan protocol in figure 7.2. Notice that the protocol asks about prior knowledge standards from the previous year rather than earlier in the school year, since the teacher team should already have gathered learning information throughout the year.
Directions: Answer each of the questions as a team when planning a preassessment and put your answers in the table following the questions.
• What are the essential standards students will learn in the unit?
• What are the one or two prior knowledge standards from last year (or the year before) that are directly related to the learning of each grade-level essential standard?
• What are possible assessment questions to use on the preassessment to gather information about student learning?
Explain why a fraction a b is equivalent to a fraction n × a n × b by using visual fraction models, with attention to how the numbe r and size of the parts differ even though the two fractions themselves are the same size. Use this principle to recognize and generate equivalent fractions. (4.NF.A.1) 1. C ircle the two models that show equivalent fractions. Write the equivalent fractions. = 2. Wr ite two fractions equivalent to 1 2 . Show how you know your answer is correct using the models.
Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators (including mixed numbers) by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions in such a way as to produce an equivalent sum or difference of fractions with like denominators. For example, 2 3 + 5 4 = 8 12 + 15 12 = 23 12 . In general, a b + c d = ad + bc bd . (5.NF.A.1)
Add or subtract.
Add and subtract mixed numbers [including fractions] with like denominators, e.g., by replacing each mixed number with an equivalent fraction, and/or by using properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction. (4.NF.B.3c)
Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole and having like denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem. (4.NF.B.3d) James runs 2 3 mile and stops to rest. Then he runs another 1 3 mile. How far did James run altogether? Carmine buys 3 3 4 feet of ribbon. She uses 1 2 4 feet of ribbon to make a bow. How many feet of ribbon does Carmine still have lleft over?
Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole, including cases of unlike denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models or equations to represent the problem. (5.NF.A.2)
Source for standard: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010. Figure 7.2: Preassessment plan for assessment leaders.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Design and Give Common Assessments and Reassess as Needed
The grade- or course-level assessments that teachers design and deliver in a unit gather the evidence of student thinking they need to analyze effective instructional practices and target any learning that students continue to need. They are essential to the learning process for teachers, teams, and students.
Before teams can create quality common assessments, they first need to determine the meaning of each essential standard. By unwrapping each essential standard and pairing its verbs and nouns, teams develop a list of targets (or skills) students need to learn to demonstrate proficiency. Common mid-unit assessments often gather information about one or two targets within an essential standard, while the common end-of-unit assessment covers the full essential standard. If the essential standard is a loaf of bread, then the targets are the slices of bread that comprise the loaf. Common mid-unit assessments assess one or two pieces of bread, while the end-ofunit assessment assesses the full scope of the loaf.
Assessment leaders ensure that the assessments the team uses will gather the information they need to truly make sense of what students have learned and identify any trends in student misconceptions or errors (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2020; Dimich, 2 024; DuFour et al., 2024; Marzano, 2017; Mattos et al., 2025; Schuhl et al., 2024). Common mid-unit assessments are often short, leaving time for daily instruction on the day they are given and making it more reasonable for teachers to score them quickly so they can use them formatively with students. When teachers create the assessment, they can collect the items to use on the assessment from curriculum resources, online assessment items, previously given assessments, or generative artificial intelligence tools, among other sources. Each question should be a direct match to the learning targets assessed in the grade- or course-level essential standards. To reveal trends in student thinking and reasoning, consider using observational or constructed-response items rather than multiple choice.
From our work accelerating learning with teams, we created a checklist for teams to use to focus their assessment design. The “Creating Common Assessments” checklist in figure 7.3 first appeared in Acceleration for All: A How-to Guide for Overcoming Learning Gaps (Kramer & Schuhl, 2023). This checklist is designed to guide the creation of common assessments in a way that will produce learning for teachers, teacher teams, and students when the student work from the assessment is analyzed.
Common Assessment Criteria Check If Addressed
1. The targets or standards being assessed are written on the assessment.
2. Questions on the assessment align to the targets or standards being assessed.
3. There are enough questions per target or standard for teachers to know whether students learned the target or standard (for example, more than one question and, if multiple choice, four to five questions per target or standard).
4. The questions on the assessment are a balance of lower- and higherlevel questions and match grade-level proficiency expectations.
5. The team has agreed how to score the assessment and what students must show in their work and reasoning to demonstrate proficiency.
6. Directions are clear and easy to read. If the assessment is oral, teachers have a common script to read, common manipulatives or text, and a common checklist to record student learning data during the assessment.
7. If the assessment is on paper, the font size is large enough and there is space for students to write answers if needed.
8. There are team agreements for how to administer the assessment and the resources students can use, if any.
9. The team has agreed how to modify or accommodate any assessments for students who require it.
Source: Kramer & Schuhl, 2023, p. 69.
Figure 7.3: Creating common assessments checklist.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Once they have delivered the common assessment, teacher assessment leaders ensure that they analyze the data as a team by target. We recommend the following protocol.
1. Sort student work into piles by target or standard to identify the students in each targeted group. Which students demonstrate proficiency or higher? Which students are close to proficiency? Which students have minimal proficiency? Why?
2. Determine and document the trends in student learning that are evident in each pile. Start with the students who demonstrated proficiency or higher, then move on to those who are close to proficiency, and end with those who have minimal proficiency. By identifying trends in reasoning from those who are proficient to those who are not, targeted needs are revealed to move each group of students up one level toward proficiency or extension (Kramer & Schuhl, 2017, 2023).
3. Create and document the targeted and specific intervention or extension needed for each group of students as a team and determine which teacher will lead each targeted need. The team may decide that the teacher leading each targeted group of students should create an activity and share it with the rest of the team to use as stations or small groups in every classroom with the appropriate students. Alternatively, the team might decide to exchange students across classrooms, and the teacher leading each targeted group of students teaches that group of students during a time set aside for interventions and extensions.
A fifth-grade team with which we worked in California noticed that after giving a common assessment related to summarizing, proficient or higher students paraphrased, wrote in sequential order, and included key details. Looking next at students close to proficiency, the team observed that these students were not including key details in the summary, so they planned a targeted intervention focused on students identifying key details in a text. Those students with a minimal understanding either copied much of the text or showed difficulty understanding or reading the text. The team created two interventions: one with a sole focus on paraphrasing and another about reading to grade level. Each day, they asked students to summarize in two sentences what they read (orally or written).
Once students have demonstrated learning of the targets for an essential standard or the essential standard itself, consider as a team how to reassess them so they can demonstrate their current level of proficiency (Guskey, 2023). Any additional assessment should be novel. For example, use a new context for word problems or new numbers on a mathematics assessment, a new reading passage for a reading assessment, or a new chart or graph to analyze in science or social studies. Students need to demonstrate that they have learned the required skill after possibly learning through test corrections and additional instruction. When accelerating learning, students receive full credit for their demonstration of learning the targets for an essential standard or the standard itself, even if it happened after the desired time frame. The goal is for students to learn essential standards to grade level or beyond and to see that they are capable of that learning.
Involve Students in Learning From Their Assessments
Nicole Dimich (2024), in her book Design in Five, Second Edition, states:
Using assessment well means capitalizing on the collected information and using those insights to facilitate learning and foster hope for students. . . . When students see assessment in terms of character deficits
rather than opportunities to grow, their self-confidence plummets and their hope fades. . . . When students see their strengths, assessment practices can nurture this type of persistence and resilience. (pp. 5, 12)
To accelerate learning, students must be at the center of the assessment process, not an afterthought. Assessment and learning should not be done to students; instead, teachers must engage in assessment with students as partners in their own learning. This means that from the beginning of each unit, students are engaged in making sense of the standards and the content they are learning. Education researchers and leaders such as John Hattie (2017; Visible Learning Meta X , 2023), Jan Chappuis and Rick Stiggins (2020), and Robert J. Marzano (2010, 2017) have pointed out the need to involve students in understanding their progress in learning along the path to mastery by tracking their own data on each learning target and standard. According to Hattie, this process has an effect size of 0.75 (Visible Learning Meta X , 2023). Marzano’s (2010) research concludes that having students track their progress visually has an effect size of as much as 0.70, or 26 percentile points. These researchers also stress the importance of student goal setting and reflection on a unit-by-unit basis.
There are a variety of tools that students can use to track and reflect on their learning throughout a unit and after each common assessment. Figures 7.4 (page 152) and 7.5 (page 153) share two examples of student-reflection tools used after an assessment to accelerate learning. Figure 7.4 can be used throughout the year after common mid-unit assessments or end-of-unit assessments, and figure 7.5 is used after a common end-of-unit assessment.
As assessment leaders, it is most important to use any chosen student tracker or reflection tool to promote and build student self-efficacy or confidence in their ability to learn and achieve. We have learned the importance of teachers teaching students to reflect at all grade levels during a unit and after each assessment. It is critical that students develop a growth mindset if they are to believe that, with effort, they can learn content in various subject areas, even when it seems difficult (Dweck, 2016). Developing a growth mindset means that students will fail along the way and learn from their mistakes and misconceptions. When students see themselves as learners, they are developing self-efficacy, which instills in them the belief that they can succeed and the confidence to persevere toward that success.
Student Name:
Learning Target: I can ask and answer questions to show that I know key details in a text.
This means I can . . .
• Ask who, what, when, where, and how questions related to key details in a text
• Answer who, what, when, where, and how questions about key details in a text
Proficiency Rubric: I can ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
4 Advanced Student asks and answers questions and cites explicit rationale from the text to show a full understanding of key details in a text.
3 Proficient Student asks and answers questions to show an understanding of key details in a text.
2 Approaching Student asks and answers basic questions to show a partial understanding of key details in a text.
1 Developing Student answers basic questions to show a partial understanding of key details in a text.
For each assessment, record your learning by writing the date and coloring the bar graph to show your score. 4 3 2 1 Date 9/14 9/25 10/15 11/14
Source: Adapted from Kramer & Schuhl, 2023.
Figure 7.4: Example of a grade 2 student-reflection tool after common assessments over time.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Formatively Assess in Class With Immediate Feedback
Every day in class, lessons provide an opportunity to check on student learning and have students immediately, in real time, learn from feedback. The feedback might come from the teacher or from other students in the classroom. Hattie found an effect size of 0.82 when students learn from one another during classroom discussions and concludes that such interactions have the potential to considerably accelerate student learning (Visible Learning Meta X , 2023).
Formative assessment used during instruction is an important form of assessment, and it has tremendous impact on student learning. Paul Black and Dylan
Student Name:
Unit 4: Graph Linear Functions
Directions: Write your score for each learning target and identify whether you have learned the standard yet. Then complete the following prompts.
1. I can identify the slope and y-intercept from the graph of a linear function. 1–4 6 out of 8 I got it!
Still learning it
2. I can graph linear functions given as equations. 5–10 9 out of 12 I got it!
Still learning it
3. I can graph linear functions to solve word problems. 11–13 3 out of 9 I got it!
Still learning it
This test shows that I have learned . . . I can look at a graph of a linear function and find its slope and y-intercept. I can graph a line from an equation.
This test shows that I still need to learn . . . I still need to learn how to write an equation from a word problem so I can make a graph and answer the question.
I agree / disagree with my test scores because . . . I don’t like word problems, and I did not practice how to solve them.
My plan to learn the targets I still need learn is . . .
Go to the word problem help during Mustang Time and practice writing equations from a word problem.
Source: Adapted from Kramer & Schuhl, 2023.
Figure 7.5: Example of an algebra 1 student-reflection tool after a common assessment.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Wiliam’s (1998) article “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment” shares research from which they conclude that formative assessment processes have an effect size of 0.4 to 0.7 and can increase to near grade level the learning of lower-performing students. The formative assessment process they describe includes teachers using their assessments diagnostically, providing students with feedback throughout instruction and after each assessment, and having students engage in continued learning from their assessment results. Marzano (2010) similarly finds
a correlation between the amount of formative assessment and increases in student learning. This includes both formal and informal formative assessment experiences.
As assessment leaders, consider lesson design as another means to accelerate student learning. Answering questions like the following will offer insight into student thinking and provide time for students to learn from the teacher and each other during each daily lesson.
• What is the learning target students will learn in the lesson today?
• What is the prior knowledge to address during the lesson today? How will students engage in reconstructing that prior knowledge?
• How will students stop and reflect on their learning of the target during the lesson to identify what they have learned, any questions they might have, and what they still need to learn?
• How will every student answer questions in a whole-group setting to allow for feedback and lesson adjustments?
• What tasks will students work on in groups to learn from one another?
• When in the lesson will there be time to observe student learning and provide feedback?
• How might learning be differentiated or scaffolded to the grade or course level during the lesson?
• How will students know if they learned the learning target or goal by the end of the lesson?
Teachers can learn much about student thinking throughout a lesson, whether by seeing their thinking on a whiteboard, poster paper, or other source, or by hearing student discussions. Each of these provides an opportunity for the teacher and students to learn and accelerate learning through feedback on formative assessments. To be most effective, the lesson must be focused and instructional minutes maximized for learning.
Next Steps
All teachers are learners and leaders. As assessment leaders, consider how to shift mindsets so team members do not see assessment as an event to generate a grade but rather a process to gather information about student learning of grade-level standards (and, at times, prior knowledge standards) to accelerate student learning.
Then, assessment leaders use the information to create focused and robust lessons and interventions. A next step to using assessments for acceleration might be any one of the following.
• Identify essential grade- or course-level standards and the prior knowledge standards aligned with each one.
• Create a team calendar to focus grade-level and prior knowledge learning each day as well as to determine when common mid-unit assessments (CFAs) are needed and any flex days that are necessary for intervention and extension before the unit ends.
• Create a preassessment focused on prior knowledge skills, as needed.
• Create team common mid-unit and end-of-unit assessments by target or essential standard to gather information about student thinking and inform next instructional steps.
• Discuss as a team the instructional strategies to use to teach grade- or course-level standards and instructional practices to provide meaningful feedback to students during lessons.
• Create a student reflection tool to engage students in determining what they have learned or not learned yet.
Accelerating learning to grade level and beyond takes a team. Teachers on the team working as assessment leaders create the assessments that they will need to gather information about student learning. The information provided reveals to teachers the grade-level and prior knowledge instruction they will need to deliver across classrooms. Just as important, the evidence they gather in assessments allows students to track their own progress in their learning. Acceleration needs assessment leaders to grow the learning of every student to grade level and beyond.
References
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DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., Many, T. W., Mattos, M., & Muhammad, A. (2024). Learning by doing: A handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (4th ed.). Solution Tree Press.
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Effective assessment leadership on the part of teachers is crucial for student success. In The Teacher as Assessment Leader, Second Edition, editor Thomas R. Guskey and expert contributors share a collection of thoughtful strategies and proposals for re-envisioning assessment, in both its perceived purpose and its employed practice, to enhance student learning and improve teacher instruction. With extensive research, illustrative examples and templates, and step-by-step processes to employ in the classroom, teachers may come to understand assessment in a new way that offers significant benefits to students.
K–12 teachers will:
• Gain new perspectives on assessment’s role in guiding students’ education
• Employ practical strategies proven to improve instruction and enhance learning
• Promote regular testing, analysis, and improvement of their own assessment strategies
• Encourage student self-efficacy in identifying and pursuing learning goals
• Lead and collaborate with colleagues to develop more effective, practical assessments
as Assessment The TEACHER LEADER
“This is a collection of the best thinkers, writers, and presenters in assessment literacy. So many benefits can be found in this single source covering multiple concepts and ideas.”
—PETER MARSHALL , Educational Consultant; Solution Tree Associate and Author
“One of the greatest challenges in education is to do differently than what was done to us, especially with assessment. This collection shows the journey of change may at times be uncomfortable but is worth it.”
—IAN LANDY , Regional Principal, Partners in Education (Oceanview), Powell River, British Columbia, Canada
“This is a must-have resource for all teachers seeking to improve classroom instruction and elevate team collaboration.”
—NATALIE
ROMERO , Director of Learning Services, Moriarty-Edgewood School District, Moriarty, New Mexico
— S econd e dition