Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom: A Guide for Instructional Leaders

Great explanation of how to assist students to be more involved in their own learning through goal setting and the teacher's role in guiding learning with action oriented formative assessments.

I am the curriculum and instructional director for a school district. We are currently rewriting our curriculum. I have ordered several professional development books for teachers to us as a resource on formative assessments. This one is rarely on my check-out shelf for more than a day! My teachers and principals find it very useful.

The book supplies ready made forms and tables which enabled me to share with colleagues for immediate use. Nice partner book with Learning Targets.

Good book to easily explain what formative assessment is and what it isn't. A powerful tool indeed! I recommend it.

Kkkkk

Love this book - great foundational book.

Great read!

This book by Moss and Brookhart is an overview of the different methodology behind formative assessment, how it works with the classroom community to bridge learning with proper quality questioning, and methods to measure your own success in the implementation of a variety of formative assessment models to make sure that your students are finding a variety of opportunities to prove their knowledge throughout the process of instruction.I enjoyed this book, and the resources they provide throughout the text are helpful and immediately implementable in the classroom. I have found that using formative assessment in a variety of ways is extremely helpful in keeping students engaged, and allowing them to understand the level of discourse that is required in the classroom and required of the texts we are reading or the pieces we are writing. While I have used formative assessment for a long time, the methods that are presented (and ways of measuring the implementation) are useful and easy to roll out in planning lessons, discussions, and checking student growth.That said, there are a lot of things that this book is wholly bizarre – for instance, the insistence and reiteration by the authors that if it were only for correct quality questioning, an instructor could find that students have a great deal more motivation, buy in, and engagement with their education overall. I thought that this was ridiculous – especially in classrooms where I have a lot of high-poverty, English Language Learners, or other types of education-gap-challenged students trying to navigate the higher levels with the same strategies that didn't work in earlier levels. They will literally say, “I didn't read that,” in response to questioning, and if they haven't read there is no opportunity for discussion. I think that this claim in a technical manual is completely unfounded, and yet it isn't presented as a suggestion but as untested fact.I also think that this book is not worth the price tag that is printed on it. It is helpful, but at a little over 150 pages of techniques that are a little helpful, $30 is steep. I think I wouldn't mind if there was a great deal more resources in the book or available online to people who purchased the book, but this seems like a publisher who is parading around something that could easily be similarly presented in a few minutes with the handouts as a supreme technical manual. Also, some of the research is somewhat anecdotal and opinion, but is presented as fact.Regardless, there are some really helpful elements of this text, and I think that if it weren't so expensive it would be a useful tool for any teacher at any level to have on their bookshelf... but wait for a used copy.