Protocol 4
Design Considerations
Collaborative Common Assessment Methods
Toward a Deeper Understanding of Assessment Literacy
Delivering New Approaches to Assessment
Understanding Assessments as a Way to Inform Teaching
Collaborative Common Assessments in Action: Teachers Learn in a Formative Context
(Re)defining Assessment
Summative Assessment
Formative Assessment
An Integrated System
Delivering Common Assessments Within a Unit of Instruction
Pretests and Post-Tests
Frequent Formatives
Integrated Interventions
Action Research
Examining Data to Improve Learning
The Right Kind of Data Conversations
A Data Protocol
Evidence
The Missing Link
Analyzing Types of Errors
Error Analysis to Target Learning Needs
Responding With Instructional Agility
Making Program Improvements
Curriculum
Instruction
Assessment
Better Assessment Designs
Planning Instructional Responses
Differentiated Responses
Problem Solving When Learning Doesn’t Happen
Eliminating the Game Playing of Second-Chance Testing
Managing Support Between Assessments
Deciding When to Advance Learning
Motivation
Re-engagement
Error Analysis and Coaching
Enrichment
Encouraging Student Investment and Student Voice
Expecting Career and College Readiness—All Learners, All the Time
About the Author
Cassandra Erkens is a presenter, facilitator, coach, trainer of trainers, keynote speaker, author, and teacher. She presents nationally and internationally on assessment, instruction, school improvement, and professional learning communities.
Cassandra has served as an adjunct faculty member at Hamline University and Cardinal Stritch University. She has authored and coauthored a wide array of published trainings, and she has designed and delivered the training of trainers programs for two major education-based companies.
As an educator and recognized leader, Cassandra has served as a senior high school English teacher, a director of staff development at the district level, a regional school improvement facilitator, and a director of staff and organization development in the private sector.
Currently, Cassandra leads a team of assessment architects of the Assessment Center at Solution Tree. She works closely with assessment experts Nicole Vagle and Tom Schimmer and a host of renowned thought leaders in the field of assessment to develop the resources, trainings, and support mechanisms to help educators develop assessment systems that build hope, efficacy, and achievement for all learners in the school setting.
To learn more about Cassandra’s work, visit allthingsassessment.info, and follow her on Twitter@cerkens.
To book Cassandra Erkens for professional development, contact [email protected].
Foreword
By Richard DuFour
For many years now, my colleagues and I have asserted that the most promising strategy for sustained and substantive school improvement is to develop the capacity of educators to function as members of high-performing professional learning communities (PLCs). We have also insisted that common formative assessments, created by collaborative teams of teachers, are the lynchpin of the PLC process. Collaborative Common Assessments by Cassandra Erkens offers an invaluable asset for educators as they work to become more proficient in using this powerful tool for student and adult learning.
In this thoughtful book, Erkens makes the central point that assessment intent is not nearly as important as the manner in which educators and school leaders use the assessments. The same assessment, she argues, can be constructive or destructive, low stakes or high stakes, depending entirely on how it is used. While there is a great deal of rhetoric in the assessment world on the philosophy and intent of assessments, this book focuses on practical application. Readers will be guided through the entire process, from developing the architecture of a system of assessment through using assessment data to improve instructional strategies and student results. There are four themes that run throughout the book that readers will appreciate: (1) credibility, (2) authenticity,
