Assessing Student Learning by Design: Principles and Practices for Teachers and School Leaders

“Adopting these ideas could create powerful changes in a teacher, a learner, and a classroom…. The writers of this book have organized their thoughts like signposts that lead the reader along in a natural flow of ideas. Throughout the work, they present the concepts in charts that make it easy for a reader to understand and refer to when needed.” ―Education Review

How can we help teachers use classroom assessments to gather appropriate evidence for all valued learning goals, and to use those assessments not just to measure learning but to promote it? This book provides an answer in a practical, proven, and unique Assessment Planning Framework that moves away from solely multiple-choice tests toward a wide range of approaches to classroom assessment activities, including performance-based assessments.

This user-friendly guide will help pre- and inservice teachers to match assessments to purpose, goals, and content; select appropriate tasks; communicate productive feedback to students and parents; and use assessment results to inform instruction. School leaders will find it a practical guide for improving schoolwide assessment practices, as well as supporting teachers and orienting new staff.

Assessing Student Learning by Design encourages educators to use classroom assessment as a way to inform teaching and learning, rather than simply to assign grades.

Book Features:

• Builds on the classic book Understanding by Design, written by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.
• Offers a practical, nontechnical presentation appropriate for teacher preparation and busy practitioners (K–16).
• Explores different purposes for, and methods of, classroom assessment and grading.
• Addresses assessment of academic standards as well as transdisciplinary outcomes, such as 21st-century skills.
• Describes the principles and practices underlying standards-based grading.

Jay McTighe is an educational consultant, bestselling author, and a regular speaker at national and international conferences and workshops. Steve Ferrara, senior advisor at Cognia, Inc., was a high school special education teacher, taught at the preschool and graduate school levels, and is a former Maryland state director of student assessment.