Using Assessments to Teach for Understanding: A Casebook for Educators

This Casebook presents the challenges and dilemmas that all teachers face within the current climate of high-stakes accountability. Written by both new and veteran teachers, these cases provide a powerful opportunity to collaboratively analyze and reflect on issues such as: the role of assessment in teaching and learning; designing, using, and interpreting assessments that foster student learning; and incorporating assessments into standards-based instruction. The companion Facilitator’s Guide to this volume provides analysis and discussion questions to help you use the cases in teacher education classes and in professional development workshops.

Aspiring and practicing teachers will find inspiration and challenging ideas to help them prepare for the reality of today’s classrooms, including:

• How to make time for meaningful teaching amid the push for higher test scores.
• How to construct guidelines for performance-based assessment.
• How to engage children in self-assessment and appreciation of their own progress.
• How to find the information and support needed to sustain one’s commitment to effective work with children and families.

This much-needed resource features authentic voices and experiences from elementary, middle school, dual language, and special education classrooms and spans different content areas across the curriculum.

Judith H. Shulman is director of the Institute for Case Development at WestEd. Andrea Whittaker is an Assistant Professor of Education at San José State University in the Division of Teacher Education. Michele Lew was the project manager for the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.