You’ve checked for understanding—now you can use this framework to understand what students’ confusion is telling you, and how you can adjust course.

Ed. note: Today’s students have too many tests to take—but today’s teachers still need insight into their classes’ knowledge and skills. Adding new tests every time students need to prove mastery ...

There are countless ways to assess students. Speaking broadly, two key assessment categories are “summative” and “formative”. Summative assessment, often the most popular one, aims to measure how much ...

Students retain information better when they have consistent opportunities to engage with previously taught content.

When it comes to evaluating students’ learning, teachers have a wide range of activities and methods at their disposal, although they must be sure to select the type of assessment that fits best with ...

Sometimes when teachers see good formative-assessment lessons in action, they believe they represent unrealistic aspirations for their own classrooms. In these lessons, students may be developing ...

Formative assessment is critical to a teacher’s ability to adapt lessons and check for student understanding. New technology has made it easier to do this more often and collect significantly more ...

Formative assessment began long before blended learning. Teachers have used formative assessment for decades as a method to get feedback about how students are progressing in their learning (see ...

Students often draw upon a diverse set of prior understanding and experiences when attempting to explain phenomena. Formative assessment allows teachers to better understand students’ alternative ...

“Formative assessment is an essential part of teaching because it helps guide instruction. Checking for understanding of important concepts helps the teacher decide to move on or to continue ...