Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading: Classroom Strategies That Work
Robert Marzano cuts to the heart of assessment and grading in this essential book. Although there is a mountain of research on the impact of feedback on student learning, teacher feedback is impotent unless it is accurate, timely, and designed to improve performance. With compelling evidence and practical exercises, this book builds a necessary bridge from theory to practice. Readers will learn that schools are confronted with a stark choice between two alternatives. The common choice is the continued pursuit of manufactured formative assessments that fail to inform instruction and grading policies that deliver distorted evaluations of student performance. The more challenging choice a choice that must be learned rather than purchased is proposed in these pages. The second choice requires reflection, practice, and deep understanding. If teachers and school leaders respond to Marzano s challenge, then the benefits for student learning, teaching excellence, and professional satisfaction will be deep and lasting. --Douglas B. Reeves, chairman, The Leadership and Learning Center, Salem, MassachusettsOnce again, Bob Marzano has brought world-class clarity and analysis to two profoundly important factors that affect student learning: formative assessment and grading. His findings and the practical actions he recommends are vital if we truly intend to educate ever-larger proportions of students. --Mike Schmoker, author and consultant, Flagstaff, ArizonaIn my work with educators and leaders across North America, the books of Robert Marzano are continually cited as being guiding models that schools are following to improve instructional practices and student learning. Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading is likely to join the ranks as one of those comprehensive masterworks that educators return to again and again for meticulously researched, high-impact assessment and grading practices that are fully explained and richly illustrated with relevant examples across multiple grades and content areas. There are so many important sentences, explanations, examples, quotes, supporting research, and practical exercises in this book that readers are likely to use up an entire box of highlighters trying to capture them all! Every educator and leader, new and experienced, who wants to expand his or her own assessment and grading literacy needs to move this book to the top of the must read stack. --Larry Ainsworth, executive director of professional development, The Leadership and Learning Center, Englewood, ColoradoOnce again, Bob Marzano has brought world-class clarity and analysis to two profoundly important factors that affect student learning: formative assessment and grading. His findings and the practical actions he recommends are vital if we truly intend to educate ever-larger proportions of students. --Mike Schmoker, author and consultant, Flagstaff, ArizonaIn my work with educators and leaders across North America, the books of Robert Marzano are continually cited as being guiding models that schools are following to improve instructional practices and student learning. Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading is likely to join the ranks as one of those comprehensive masterworks that educators return to again and again for meticulously researched, high-impact assessment and grading practices that are fully explained and richly illustrated with relevant examples across multiple grades and content areas. There are so many important sentences, explanations, examples, quotes, supporting research, and practical exercises in this book that readers are likely to use up an entire box of highlighters trying to capture them all! Every educator and leader, new and experienced, who wants to expand his or her own assessment and grading literacy needs to move this book to the top of the must read stack. --Larry Ainsworth, executive director of professional development, The Leadership and Learning Center, Englewood, Colorado