Balanced Assessment: From Formative to Summative, Feb/2010

Learn how to integrate formative and summative assessments seamlessly into instruction. The research, rationale, strategies, and examples provided in this book will help teachers develop their own repertoire of formative and summative assessments to monitor, grade, and make inferences about a student’s ability to meet standards and curriculum goals. Exercises at the end of each chapter provide opportunities to reflect and plan action steps.

The author shows teachers how to "begin with the end in mind"—to start with the expectations for student achievement and then work backward to help all students succeed. She details a process of analyzing the standards, deciding precisely what knowledge and skills will have to be taught and assessed, and then planning instruction to prepare students to demonstrate that they have met or exceeded the standards.

Because each grade level or content area can have hundreds of standards, the best approach is for teachers to work together in teams to plan instruction and develop common assessments. Learn the process teacher teams use to analyze the standards, develop engaging performance tasks that address the standards, and create checklists and rubrics.

About The Author:
Kay Burke, PhD, a consultant, has presented at numerous district, state, national, and international conferences. She worked in public education for 20 years, serving as a high school teacher, a department chair, a dean of students, a mentor, an administrator, a college instructor, and an appointed member of the Southern Regional Council of the College Board.

Dr. Burke was named DeKalb County Georgia Teacher of the Year and was a semifinalist for Georgia Teacher of the Year. She was also a STAR Teacher for Georgia and received an award for Excellence in Teaching presented by President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Education Terrence Bell in 1984. She received the Saint Xavier University (Illinois) Certificate of Excellence in 1994 for her work as the director of the field-based master’s program.

Dr. Burke has written and edited numerous books in the areas of standards-based teaching and learning, balanced assessment, formative assessment in the RTI framework, classroom management, mentoring, and portfolios. She is author of the best-selling books How to Assess Authentic Learning, What to Do With the Kid Who…, The Portfolio Connection, From Standards to Rubrics in Six Steps (a finalist for the Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007), and From Standards to Rubrics in Six Steps (a 2010 finalist for the AEP Distinguished Achievement Award).

She earned certification in administration and supervision from the University of Georgia, a doctorate in communicative arts from Georgia State University, an educational specialist degree from Emory University, a master of education from the University of Central Florida, and a bachelor of arts from Florida Atlantic University.