Assessment Recommendations

Key Recommendations:

1. Align assessments with the goals of the mathematics program by measuring students’ conceptual understanding and proficiency in the mathematical practices. 

2. Create structures to ensure that the results of all assessments are used to strengthen teaching, curriculum, and support for students.

3. Make collaborative design and implementation of common formative assessment processes a norm, and allocate the necessary time for grade-level or subject-based teacher teams to complete this work. 

4. Provide teachers with the professional development support that they need to develop their assessment expertise.

5. Ensure that collaborative teams use assessment results appropriately to guide and modify instructional practices and make program improvements.

6. Work in collaborative grade-level or subject-based teams to develop common assessments to be used formatively; commit to their use, and analyze and apply the results to advance student learning and improve instruction. 

7. Evaluate students’ mathematics learning on the basis of multiple measures to make more reliable and valid judgments about what students know and are able to do.

8. Provide students with descriptive, accurate, and timely feedback on assessments, including strengths, weaknesses, and next steps for progress toward the learning targets. 

9. Recognize that effective instruction and ongoing review are the best high-stakes “test prep” strategies.

10. View assessment results as supplying part of the picture of instructional effectiveness and use them to drive instructional decision making, focus personal professional growth, and make program improvements.

Research Base:

Artzt, Alice F., Eleanor Armour-Thomas, and Frances R. Curcio. Becoming a Reflective Mathematics Teacher: A Guide for Observations and Self-Assessment. New York: Routledge, 2011. 

Black, Paul, and Dylan Wiliam. “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment.” Phi Delta Kappan 80, no. 1 (1998a): 139–48.

 ———. “Assessment and Classroom Learning.” Assessment in Education 5, no. 1 (1998b): 7–74. 

Clarke, Shirley, Helen Timperley, and John Hattie. Unlocking Formative Assessment: Practical Strategies for Enhancing Students’ Learning in the Primary and Intermediate Classroom. Auckland, New Zealand: Hodder Moa Beckett, 2004. 

Daro, Phil, Frederic A. Mosher, and Tom Corcoran. Learning Trajectories in Mathematics: A Foundation for Standards, Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction. Philadelphia: Consortium for Policy Research in Education, 2011. 

Franklin, Christine, Gary Kader, Denise Mewborn, Jerry Moreno, Roxy Peck, Mike Perry, and Richard Scheaffer. Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) Report: A Pre-K Curriculum Framework. Alexandria, Va.: American Statistical Association, 2007. 

Heritage, Margaret. Learning Progressions: Supporting Instruction and Formative Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Council of Chief State School Officers, 2008. Herman, Joan, and Robert Linn. On the Road to Assessing Deeper Learning: The Status of Smarter Balanced and PARCC Assessment Consortia. CRESST Report 823. Los Angeles: University of California, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), 2013. 

Leahy, Siobhan, Christine Lyon, Marnie Thompson, and Dylan Wiliam. “Classroom Assessment: Minute by Minute, Day by Day.” Educational Leadership 63, no. 3 (2005): 18–24. 

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Assessment Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, Va.: NCTM, 1995. 

———. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, Va.: NCTM, 2000. 

———. Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century. James W. Pellegrino and Margaret L. Hilton, eds., Committee on Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills, Board on Testing and Assessment and Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2012a. 

Popham, W. James. Transformative Assessment. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008. 

Stiggins, Rick. “Assessment through the Student’s Eyes.” Educating the Whole Child 64, no. 8 (2007): 22–26. 

Wiliam, Dylan. “Content Then Process: Teacher Learning Communities in the Service of Formative Assessment.” In Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning, edited by Douglas Reeves, pp. 183–204. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press, 2007b. 

———. “Keeping Learning on Track: Classroom Assessment and the Regulation of Learning.” In Second Handbook of Mathematics Teaching and Learning, edited by Frank K. Lester, Jr., pp. 1053–98. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age; Reston, Va.: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2007a. 

———. Embedded Formative Assessment. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press, 2011.