Using Classroom Assessment to Guide Instruction (DVD and Facilitator's Guide)

In today’s high-stakes testing environment, you can’t wait for annual test scores to tell whether students are learning. Instead, you want teachers to continuously check their students for understanding, adjust classroom instruction if necessary, and re-teach those who are falling behind. But traditionally, teachers haven’t assessed students on a daily basis and aren’t always prepared to use assessment data to adjust their instruction.

Now here’s a video series that introduces teachers to a wide variety of daily classroom assessment techniques, from pencil-and-paper tests to simple observations. Show how teachers in every grade and subject can use classroom assessments to guide their daily instruction. And convey how classroom assessments can reflect the learning goals of state- and districtwide assessments.

Program 1, Techniques for Classroom Assessment, introduces teachers to proven assessment techniques and explains the importance of using daily assessments to guide instruction. Show how teachers use exit cards at the end of a class, graphic organizers, peer review, one-on-one conferencing, self-reflection, student-designed rubrics, and other assessment techniques to address the needs of different learners and help craft the next day’s instruction.

Program 2, The Assessment-Instruction Link, takes teachers into classrooms to see how they can modify instruction based on what they learn from classroom assessments. Actual teachers explain why it’s important to assess students frequently, how they decide which assessment techniques to use, and how they cope with time-management challenges.

In the third DVD, The Role of Classroom Assessment in School Improvement, interviews with teachers and administrators explain how classroom assessment directly correlates to the entire assessment process—from students’ report cards to high-stakes tests. Classroom scenes show how teachers use district and state standards to design their assessments. And district administrators explain how they support classroom assessment practices through professional development and other activities.