rel="nofollow" href="#ub2dc8e2e-30f9-5e61-bf04-e978e5af1d87">chapter 1, I also show that attempts at improving the quality of entrants into teaching and removing the least effective teachers will result in small effects that will take a generation to materialize. The fundamental argument of chapter 1, therefore, is that to secure our future economic prosperity, we need to help the teachers who are already serving in our schools improve.
In chapter 2, I explore some of the ways that teachers might develop, and estimate how big an impact these changes would have on student outcomes. I show that some popular initiatives, such as learning styles, have no discernible impact on student achievement at all, while others, such as increasing teacher content knowledge, do improve student learning but by much less than people generally assume.
In the second part of chapter 2, I summarize the research on classroom formative assessment practices and show that these practices appear to have a much greater impact on educational achievement than most other reforms. Chapter 2 concludes by outlining what formative assessment is, and what it is not, and presents the five key strategies of formative assessment.
Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 deal in turn with each of the five key strategies of formative assessment.
1. Clarifying, sharing, and understanding learning intentions and success criteria
2. Eliciting evidence of learning
3. Providing feedback that moves learning forward
4. Activating learners as instructional resources for one another
5. Activating learners as owners of their own learning
In each of these five chapters, I present a summary of the research evidence that shows the impact of the strategy, and I offer a number of practical techniques that teachers have used—some in the literature, and others in classrooms that I have observed—to incorporate the strategy into their regular classroom practice. Although there is a definite progression throughout the chapters, I have made each chapter as self-contained as possible.
In all, these five chapters describe over seventy practical techniques for classroom formative assessment. Most of these techniques are not new. What is new is the framework for formative assessment presented in chapter 2, which shows how these disparate techniques fit together, and the research evidence that shows that these techniques are powerful ways to increase student engagement and help teachers become more responsive to their students’ needs.
As I have encountered many hundreds of teachers over the course of my career investigating formative assessment, I have not been able to recall the specific names of teachers and the dates on which I observed their classrooms in every instance in this book. Additionally, other observations occurred as part of research studies in which we granted the teachers anonymity for their contributions. As a result, many of the examples and techniques throughout this book are not cited directly, but rather presented through the lens of my personal observations.
In preparing this second edition, I show how the strategies and techniques presented in this book are just as relevant in colleges and universities as they are in K–12 settings. While the five strategies are equally applicable to college-aged students (and, indeed, to adult learning), the ways in which they are implemented do need to be adapted, and in this second edition, I provide a number of examples of practical techniques for doing formative assessment in higher education, and especially in lecture settings.
Additionally in this second edition, I have obviously updated many of the research studies, particularly those related to the changing nature of the working environment. I have also updated the research evidence on the various ideas that have been proposed for improving schools—and while the evidence has changed, the conclusions have not. First, this updated evidence continues to indicate that most current methods of school improvement won’t help improve schools much. Second, it indicates that the power of classroom formative assessment to improve students’ learning is incredibly strong, with evidence from all over the world showing that not only does classroom formative assessment work, but it is manageable in ordinary classrooms, without extra resources. I hope that this book convinces every reader about the impact that formative assessment can have on student achievement and provides some guidance about how best to begin the difficult, challenging, but worthwhile task of applying research to practice.
chapter 1
Why Educational Achievement Matters
Educational achievement matters—more now than at any time in the past. It matters for individuals, and it matters for society. For individuals, higher levels of education mean higher earnings, better health, and increased life span. For society, higher levels of education mean lower health care costs, lower criminal justice costs, and increased economic growth. In this chapter, we will explore why education and educational achievement are vital to the prosperity of every nation and why the vast majority of attempts by policymakers to improve the achievement of school students have failed. We will then discuss three generations of school effectiveness research, the impact of teacher quality, and research-proven ways to increase teacher quality.
The Increasing Importance of Educational Achievement
Education has always been important, but it has never been as important as it is now. In 1979, the median salary of those with bachelor’s degrees was $30,000 higher than the median salary of those with a high school diploma or GED (in constant 2012 dollars). By 2012, the annual earnings gap had widened to over $58,000 (Autor, 2014).
Higher levels of education are also associated with better health; people with more education are less susceptible to a whole range of diseases, including cancer, and are less likely to have a significant period of disability toward the end of their lives (Jagger et al., 2007). No doubt this is partly due to lifestyle choices, such as smoking, but it is also due in part to the kinds of work that are available to those with limited education. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2010), approximately 75 percent of American adults who did not complete high school say they are in good health, compared with 95 percent of those with college degrees.
Perhaps more surprisingly, people with more education live longer. Between 1915 and 1939, at least thirty states changed their child labor laws and periods of compulsory schooling. As a result, a number of students were required to attend school for one more year than children in other states. By looking at the life spans of those who had been required to attend an extra year of school, Adriana Lleras-Muney (2005) estimates that each additional year of schooling adds 1.7 years to one’s life. These are high stakes indeed.
Educational achievement also matters for society. Henry Levin and his colleagues at Columbia University estimate that preventing one high school dropout produces a net benefit to society of $209,000 (Levin, Belfield, Muennig, & Rouse, 2007). The main components of this total are:
• $139,000 in extra taxes the individual would pay because he or she would be earning more money
•
