WestEd

How might we assess continuously, during instruction, in ways that empower students as learners?

Formative assessment is a process by which teachers and students notice, recognize and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, as the learning is taking place. Through its Student Agency in Learning (SAIL) project, a team from WestEd has been exploring how formative assessment practices like goal setting, self-assessment, and feedback from teachers and peers can empower students to move their learning forward. They have learned that formative assessment requires more than just employing a set of practices. It also depends on classroom cultures that value risk-taking, trust, and inclusion, as well as the cultivation of positive student identities that help learners respond constructively to feedback. The WestEd team has incorporated these lessons into a yearlong blended course for teachers. Through the course, teachers not only learn key concepts and instructional practices, they experience what it feels like to self assess, to give and receive peer feedback, and to take learning risks in a community of peers.

Prototypes & Artifacts

• SAAL Overview & Bibliography
• SAAL Self Assessment Continuum
• SAAL Peer Feedback Continuum
• Video Study Group Protocol
• Quotes from Students
• Voices of SAIL: portable version (PDF)
• FAI to SAAL to SAIL Progression Slides
• Excerpts from Tom Malarkey's Inquiry for Equity
• NEP's Learning Partnership Bridge

Presentations of Learning

Website

• SAAL Microsite

Blogs

• WestEd's Student Agency in Assessment and Learning Project (Competency Works, September 16, 2016)

Publications

• Margaret Heritage: Assessment for Learning as Support for Student Self Regulation

Related Research:

• Design Principles for New Systems of Assessment. Shepard, Penuel & Davidson (2017)

Student Voices

Presentation of Learning