 Common Formative Assessments by Larry Ainsworth and Donald Viegut.

o The essential purpose of the book is to present a "how-to" guide for educators and
leaders on the topic of common formative assessments as they relate to other instruction
and assessment practices. It showcases common formative assessments as the
centerpiece of several closely connected practices proven to improve student
achievement.
o This is an important book for us given our continued emphasis on common formative
assessment. It is my hope that this book and our review of it will assist you and your
Professional Learning Community in continuing to improve your practice and in
continuing to assist students in improving achievement

o Common formative assessments for learning can do for classroom

teachers what large-scale assessments of learning cannot. These are
assessments collaboratively designed by a team that are administered to
students by each teacher periodically throughout the year. They asses
student understanding of the particular standards that the educators are
currently focusing on in their individual instructional programs. The
teachers collaboratively score the assessments, analyze the results, and
discuss ways to achieve improvements in student learning. In this way,
assessment informs instruction. If the common formative assessments are
in line with the large-scale assessments in terms of what students need to
know and be able to do on those assessments, the formative results will
provide valuable information regarding what students already know and
what they still need to learn.
o
o

Many variables influence student achievement. Some of these variables

such as family income, family context, parents’ level of education, and
student life away from school, are outside of educators’ control. By
focusing on what educators can control, they make a significant difference
in the educational lives of students.

o This assertion points to the critical need of focusing efforts on enhancing

the knowledge and skill of our educators. Why? Because of all the things
that are important to having good schools, nothing is as important as the
teacher and what that person knows, believes, and can do.
o For any educational improvement to bring about lasting change,
classroom teachers must be provided the opportunity for significant
investment and ownership of the improvement effort. Educators must play
a key role in the establishment of any change if it is to have lasting effects.
o
o
o We must continue to pay attention to our large-scale assessment data.
But we must go beyond the once-a-year analysis of large-scale
assessment data. We must begin to focus our energies and time on
recurring analysis of small-scale, school based assessments for learning
 to better meet the diverse learning needs of all students. Common
formative assessments give classroom teachers the timely data needed to
provide students with the “educational booster shot” of differentiated
instruction.
o The major components of a standards-based comprehensive instruction
and assessment system include:
 Power Standards
 Unwrapping the standards; Big Ideas and Essential Questions
 Formative and Summative Assessments
 Instructional unit design, including classroom performance
assessments
 Collaborative scoring of student work, including implications for
grading
 Data-driven instructional decision making, including implications for
intervention and acceleration.
o Tomorrow- We will begin looking at each component in some detail and
examining the instructional cycle

With such an emphasis on deliberately aligning instruction to assessment, this might

well be construed as the suspicious practice of “teaching to the test.” In that context,
teachers who know in advance the exact items on the test can skew their instruction so
that students will know the answers to all the test items before they sit for those exams.
Certainly this would compromise not only the test’s validity and reliability but also the
professionalism of teachers.

o We are advocating an approach to assessment aimed at demystifying the teaching

and learning process. The academic content standards represent the clear learning
targets all are students are to know and be able to do. They have been published and
made known so that curriculum can be developed to impart them. Criterion-referenced
state assessments have been developed to gauge student proficiency of those
standards. It would be a breach of integrity to publish the questions in advance.
However, states do release their assessments from prior years to help educators
prepare students for the types, formats, vocabulary, and frequency of items likely to
appear on future assessments- an early understanding of an assessment’s content and
focus is a matter of fairness.
o Knowing in advance the particular standards upon which an assessment is based,
along with the types and frequency of items that will appear on that assessment is fair
disclosure for teachers and students. Educators who plan standards based
assessments before any instruction of those standards takes place and prepare
students for success on those assessments are demonstrating the principle of fair
disclosure.

If a standard is worthy of being taught, it is worthy of being assessed. Without sufficient

instruction and assessment time available to accomplish this for each and every
standard that students are to learn, the only reasonable course of action for educators
to take is to sharpen their focus. And they can do this by concentrating their instruction
and assessment primarily on the Power Standards.

o Power Standards, a term first associated with author and educator Douglas Reeves,
refers to a process whereby educators prioritize the content and performance standards
for a given subject in terms of their endurance, leverage, and ability to prepare students
for readiness at the next level of learning. Power Standards must also reflect what will
be required of students on state tests. Once Power Standards are identified they are
aligned into the curriculum to ensure they represent a logical and comprehensive flow.

o Power Standards are not a license to eliminate- and thus fail to teach- standards
that have not been so designated. Even though individual educators will teach and
assess both the Power Standards and the other standards in their respective subjects,
common formative assessments are principally designed to provide teachers with
information about how their students are progressing toward the Power Standards.