The Formative Assessment Action Plan: Practical Steps to More Successful Teaching and Learning

Join Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher as they outline a clear-cut, realistic, and rewarding approach to formative assessment. They explain how four discrete steps work in tandem to create a seamless, comprehensive formative assessment system—one that has no beginning and no end. This ongoing approach enhances an active give-and-take relationship between teachers and students to promote learning.

Where am I going?

Step 1: Feed-up ensures that students understand the purpose of an assignment, task, or lesson, including how they will be assessed.

Where am I now?

Step 2: Checking for understanding guides instruction and helps determine if students are making progress toward their goals.

How am I doing?

Step 3: Feedback provides students with valuable and constructive information about their successes and needs.

Where am I going next?

Step 4: Feed-forward builds on the feedback from step 3 and uses performance data to facilitate student achievement.

Dozens of real-life scenarios demonstrate how to apply these steps in your classroom, always focusing on the presence or absence of student learning to guide the action. By enabling teachers and students alike to see more clearly what they need to do for learning to be successful, this approach builds students' competence, confidence, and understanding.

No matter what grade level you teach, The Formative Assessment Action Plan will help you make better use of assessment data so you can more quickly adjust instruction to keep every student on the path to success.

Nancy Frey, Ph.D., a Professor at San Diego State University received the 2008 Early Career Achievement Award from the National Reading Conference. Dr. Frey has published in The Reading Teacher, English Journal, Remedial and Special Education, and Educational Leadership. She has co-authored more than fifty books on English Learners (Language Learners in the English Classroom), assessment (Checking for Understanding), writing (Scaffolded Writing Instruction), literacy (Reading for Information in Elementary School) and vocabulary (Learning Words Inside and Out). Dr. Frey teaches a variety of courses on reading instruction and literacy in content areas, classroom management, and supporting students with diverse learning needs. She also was a third grade classroom teacher.

Dr. Frey's monographs include: Reaching for the Common Core, Using Technology to Foster Learning for a New Century, Link to 21st Century Skills and Resources, and Connect Oral and Written Expression.