By Kay Haas
In a valuable new book from ASCD, Carol Ann Tomlinson & Tonya R. Moon provide a model for looking at formative assessment as the most efficient and effective way to move an individual student toward a specified learning target. Their framework calls for rethinking the traditional way educators assess and assign grades. Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom (2013) offers an approach for assessment that is motivational, empowering, and differentiated for each learner. As Tomlinson and Moon note in the opening chapter (an overview of differentiation):
The teacher simply must have a regular and evolving sense of a student’s academic progress to plan for that student’s academic health. For differentiation to be effective, teachers need to know, for each student, where that student begins and where that student is in the individual journey toward meeting the criteria of the lesson or unit (Hattie, 2012b). In other words, assessment is the compass for daily planning in a differentiated classroom.
Such “informative assessment” is based on the premise that students should have a voice in how they learn best and how they wish to demonstrate their progress toward the learning goal. Assessment is not viewed as a judgment of learning, but rather as feedback to both the student and teacher on the quality of the learning progression.
This method of assessment pushes learning forward toward a predetermined, crucial expectation. To be fully successful, the student must know exactly what is expected, what success looks like, and where he/she is in relation to the expected outcome at all times. This partnership between the teacher and the learner builds self-efficacy and connects effort to success.
My mind is spinning with ideas from this book. It is a jewel!
Kay Haas is the Instructional Partner at Arcadia Elementary in the Tuscaloosa City Schools. Her education career includes 19 years as a teacher and six as an instructional coach.
