Resources
Brookhart, S., & Lazarus, S. S. (2020, December). Pre-assessment to plan instruction for students with disabilities during distance learning (NCEO Brief #21). National Center on Educational Outcomes. https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/NCEOBrief21.pdf
Brookhart, S. (2020, May). Five formative assessment strategies to improve distance learning outcomes for students with disabilities (NCEO Brief #20). National Center on Educational Outcomes. https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/NCEOBrief20.pdf
Brookhart, S. M. (2020, August). What grading and assessment practices could schools use in the year ahead? PACE, Stanford Graduate School of Education, and Answer Lab, USC Rossier. https://theanswerlab.rossier.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Answer-Lab-Grading-202009-v1.pdf
Wiliam, D., Brookhart, S., McTighe, J., & Guskey, T. (2020). Grading in a comprehensive and balanced assessment system. Dylan Wiliam Center, Learning Sciences Institute. https://www.dylanwiliamcenter.com/whitepapers/
Wiliam, D., Brookhart, S., McTighe, J., & Guskey, T. (2019). Comprehensive and balanced assessment systems. Dylan Wiliam Center, Learning Sciences Institute. https://www.dylanwiliamcenter.com/whitepapers/
Classroom Assessment Essentials
Susan M. Brookhart
Classroom assessment is a vital part of teaching. It helps make student learning—or a lack thereof—visible so that teachers can adjust teaching practices and better support learners. In this comprehensive book by assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart, you will learn the foundational concepts and practical skills necessary to be successful with classroom assessment. Organized into 21 essentials, the books addresses everything from using pre-assessment before starting new lessons to communicating with parents about their child’s academic growth.
How to Look at Student Work to Uncover Student Thinking
Susan M. Brookhart and Alice Oakley
Student work is the primary means of learning in most if not all classroom lessons and the primary source of evidence about that learning. In this book, assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart and instructional coach Alice Oakley walk teachers through a way to look at student work across grade levels and content areas, focusing on student thinking rather than correctness. Readers learn to view students’ assignments not as a verdict on right or wrong but as a window into what students “got” and how they are thinking about it. The insight you’ll gain will help you: (1) understand what students are thinking, (2) provide effective feedback, (3) decide on next instructional moves, and (4) grow as a professional.
Ten Assessment Literacy Goals for School Leaders
Steve Chappuis, Susan M. Brookhart, and Jan Chappuis
Do you know how to ensure teachers have the knowledge and skill to use assessment data to improve student learning? Do you know the influence that student involvement in assessments has on motivation and learning? This book guides you and your leadership team through 10 assessment literacy goals with practical content, how-to’s, success indicators, and activities to extend and process learning. You will come away understanding the attributes of comprehensive and balanced assessment systems, the necessity for clear academic achievement targets, and why assessment quality is essential.
Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom: A Guide for Instructional Leaders, Second Edition
Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart
In the updated second edition of this practical guide for school leaders, authors Connie Moss and Susan Brookhart define formative assessment as an active, continual process in which teachers and students work together—every day, every minute—to gather evidence of learning, always keeping in mind three guiding questions: Where am I going? Where am I now? What strategy or strategies can help me get to where I need to go? Chapters focus on the six interrelated elements of formative assessment: (1) shared learning targets and criteria for success, (2) feedback that feeds learning forward, (3) student self-assessment and peer assessment, (4) student goal setting, (5) strategic teacher questioning, and (6) student engagement in asking effective questions.
What We Know About Grading: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What’s Next
Edited by Thomas R. Guskey and Susan M. Brookhart
This book is a review of 100-plus years of grading research that presents the broadest and most comprehensive summary of research on grading and reporting available to date, with clear takeaways for learning and teaching. Edited by Thomas R. Guskey and Susan M. Brookhart, this indispensable guide features thoughtful, thorough dives into the research from a distinguished team of scholars, geared to a broad range of stakeholders, including teachers, school leaders, policymakers, and researchers. Each chapter addresses a different area of grading research and describes how the major findings in that area might be leveraged to improve grading policy and practice.
How to Use Grading to Improve Learning
Susan M. Brookhart
Grades are imperfect, shorthand answers to “What did students learn, and how well?” In How to Use Grading to Improve Learning, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart guides educators at all levels in figuring out how to produce grades—for single assignments and report cards—that accurately communicate students’ achievement of learning goals.
How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students, Second Edition
Susan M. Brookhart
Properly crafted and individually tailored feedback on student work boosts student achievement across subjects and grades. In this updated and expanded second edition of her best-selling book, Susan M. Brookhart offers enhanced guidance and three lenses for considering the effectiveness of feedback: (1) does it conform to the research, (2) does it offer an episode of learning for the student and teacher, and (3) does the student use the feedback to extend learning?
Formative Classroom Walkthroughs: How Principals and Teachers Collaborate to Raise Student Achievement
Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart
Discover the true value of classroom walkthroughs when they are formative, not summative; supportive and collegial, not punitive or negative. Two of ASCD’s most popular authors Connie Moss and Susan Brookhart team up to equip you with a formative walkthrough approach that capitalizes on an observation process and feedback protocol that focus on what students are doing and learning.
How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data
Susan M. Brookhart
In How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart helps teachers and administrators understand the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district.
How to Design Questions and Tasks to Assess Student Thinking
Susan M. Brookhart
Why wait for end-of-year tests to tell you whether students are meeting new standards’ emphasis on higher-order thinking skills when you can assess their abilities in everyday classroom activities? Best-selling ASCD author Susan M. Brookhart explains how to design targeted questions and tasks that align with standards and assess your students’ ability to do far more than simply remember facts and procedures.
Grading and Group Work: How Do I Assess Individual Learning When Students Work Together?
Susan M. Brookhart
Answer the Common Core State Standards’ calls for increased student collaboration with the practical advice, strategies, and examples in this ASCD Arias publication. Assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart explains how to assess and report on (but not grade) learning skills and group interaction skills. Quickly learn how to assess and grade individual achievement of learning goals after group projects.
How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading
Susan M. Brookhart
What is a rubric? A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for student work that describes levels of performance quality. Sounds simple enough, right? Unfortunately, rubrics are commonly misunderstood and misused.
The good news is that when rubrics are created and used correctly, they are strong tools that support and enhance classroom instruction and student learning. In this comprehensive guide, author Susan M. Brookhart identifies two essential components of effective rubrics: (1) criteria that relate to the learning (not the “tasks”) that students are being asked to demonstrate and (2) clear descriptions of performance across a continuum of quality. She outlines the difference between various kinds of rubrics (for example, general versus task-specific, and analytic versus holistic), explains when using each type of rubric is appropriate, and highlights examples from all grade levels and assorted content areas.
Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today’s Lesson
Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart
While content standards and instructional objectives are important, this book helps you grapple with the fundamental issue of what your students are actually doing to learn and achieve during today’s lesson. It focuses your lesson planning on learning targets—lesson-sized chunks of information, skills, and reasoning processes that students need to know deeply. Discover how to write learning targets that are useful to you and your students. Learn how to convey learning targets to students throughout the lesson so that they guide student actions. And explore how you can connect learning targets across lessons to enable students to master a coherent series of challenges that ultimately lead to important curricular standards.
Formative Assessment Strategies for Every Classroom: An ASCD Action Tool, 2nd Edition
Susan M. Brookhart
This second edition of an ASCD’s best-selling Action Tool gives you more than 60 tools—with tips and implementation steps—for creating and using formative assessments in every grade level and subject. A series of Teacher Tools makes it much easier for teachers to:
- Create and use appropriate intervention strategies for struggling students.
- Give students useful feedback that advances their understanding of content.
- Design customized formative assessment tools for specific student populations.
How to Assess Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom
Susan M. Brookhart
Don’t settle for assessing recall and comprehension only when you can use this guide to create assessments for higher-order thinking skills. Assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart brings you up to speed on how to develop and use test questions and other assessments that reveal how well your students can analyze, reason, solve problems, and think creatively. Her practical framework takes you through the steps of:
- Identifying clearly the type of thinking that you want to assess.
- Designing a task or test item that requires students to demonstrate the type of thinking you’re looking for.
- Determining how to interpret, evaluate, or score the results.
- Providing the right kind of materials to help students demonstrate their thinking.
Exploring Formative Assessment
Susan M. Brookhart
Exploring Formative Assessment is your guide to creating a PLC to help further your understanding of how to use formative assessment in your school or classroom. You’ll find everything you need to organize and run your PLC, including agendas, handouts, worksheets, and the background reading for each of seven sessions. You’ll get the chance to try out new techniques and to collaborate with your colleagues as you deepen your understanding of formative assessment.
Learning Targets and Success Criteria
Formative Classroom Walkthroughs
Assessment Manifesto
Rubrics
Gathering feedback from student work. Educational Leadership (with Alice Oakley)
Planning for fair group work. Educational Leadership (with Amir Rasooli)
Eight essential principles for improving grading. Educational Leadership (with Jay McTighe, Dylan Wiliam, & Thomas Guskey)
In assessment, you see what you are looking for. New Hampshire Journal of Education.
Making the most of multiple choice. Educational Leadership
How to give professional feedback. Educational Leadership (with Connie M. Moss)
Learning targets on parade. Educational Leadership (with Connie M. Moss)
Develop a student-centered mind-set for formative assessment. Voices from the Middle
Leading by learning. Phi Delta Kappan (with Connie M. Moss)
A new view of walk-throughs. Educational Leadership (with Connie M. Moss)
Assessing creativity. Educational Leadership
Preventing feedback fizzle. Educational Leadership
Starting the conversation about grading. Educational Leadership
Knowing your learning target. Educational Leadership (with Connie M. Moss)
The many meanings of “multiple measures.” Educational Leadership
Formative assessment that empowers. Educational Leadership (with Connie M. Moss and Beverly A. Long)
Feedback that fits. Educational Leadership
The Formative Assessment Learning Cycle
Susan M. Brookhart and Jay McTighe
In this guide, experts Susan Brookhart and Jay McTighe show how best to incorporate the formative learning cycle into everyday instruction. They offer techniques for sharing learning targets, assessment activities to use in the classroom, and strategies for providing student feedback.
Grading for Student Learning
Susan M. Brookhart
Explore grading and reporting strategies that motivate student learning and accurately reflect student achievement in this guide by Susan Brookhart. Learn ways to communicate clearly about grades and grading and how to involve students in the grading process.
Giving Students Effective Feedback
Susan M. Brookhart
Feedback is one of the most important variables affecting student learning. Susan Brookhart shares how and when to provide effective feedback that helps students see where they are going, where they are now, and where they should go next in their learning.
Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading
Susan M. Brookhart
Rubrics are essential to help students learn how to learn and are strong tools that support and enhance instruction and student learning. Learn how to create and use rubrics to improve assessment and understanding in the classroom in this guide from Susan Brookhart.
Performance Assessment
Susan M. Brookhart
At-a-glance guidance for incorporating performance assessment into planning, designing and selecting rubric templates and tasks.