Fast and Effective Assessment

Book excerpt: What if teachers could dramatically reduce the amount of time they spend reviewing and correcting student work and actually see better results in terms of student learning? That’s the goal of Glen Pearsall, who shares dozens of classroom-tested strategies that lessen teachers’ workload while increasing students’ class participation and improving their understanding. Readers will learn how to • Refine their classroom questioning techniques to continually check students’ progress and provide instant feedback; • Encourage students to internalize learning goals so they better understand what is expected of them; • Use fast, formative assessment strategies to check and correct during class time; • Modify traditional summative-testing strategies to monitor student progress in a formative way; • Speed up the correction process via student self-proofing, representative sampling, and helpful technology tools; and • Engage students in becoming actively involved in assessing their own work. Drawing from his own experience as a teacher and coach, Pearsall offers practical, real-world advice in the form of techniques that are both effective and sustainable in the everyday classroom. The result is smarter assessment—for both teachers and students.