Assessing Students, Not Standards: Begin With What Matters Most
About this ebook
The standards-based learning and grading movement of the past twenty years has ushered in a critical shift in assessment that demands clarity in both what is being measured and how well students are learning. Seeing the value in this evolution, a wave of schools has invested enormous effort to institutionalize the policy and practices of the movement. In doing so, many focused their initial efforts squarely on grading and fell short of the more important work–classroom assessment. There are important lessons in these missteps and failures.
This groundbreaking, "next generation" approach to classroom assessment challenges educators to reflect on the connections between growth, mastery, and student self-efficacy and to prioritize the transferable skills of metacognition and self-regulation in assessments. A powerful call-to-action, this guide includes:
- A conceptual framework that guides the questions and order of assessment reform
- An approach to assessment, grading, and reporting that prioritizes student growth over a standard definition of success for everyone
- Strategies to develop metacognition and catalyze motivation in students
- Orientation to each chapter with learning intentions with success criteria
- Vivid case stories and prompts to power deep reflection
Underscoring the importance of learning environments that work for the full range of learning profiles, this book calls for a revolution in the narrative around assessment and grading, emphasizing the ultimate goal of nurturing students who are metacognitive, expert learners, motivated by the joy of learning.
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About the author
Dr. Lee Ann Jung is the founder of Lead Inclusion and Professor of Practice at San Diego State University. She is a former special education teacher, administrator, and full professor at the University of Kentucky, where she was director of international partnerships. She has authored ten books and numerous articles focused on inclusive education, assessment and grading, Universal Design for Learning, and multi-tiered systems of support. Over the past 25 years, Lee Ann has partnered with public, independent, and international schools across the United States and across more than 45 countries, supporting leaders and educators to redesign service delivery models, strengthen MTSS implementation, and align practice with contemporary research. Lee Ann serves on the Advisory Committee for Exceptional Youth for the U.S. State Department′s Office of Overseas Schools. She has received competitive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for autism research and from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) for teacher preparation. She has chaired the Classroom Assessment Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and is Section Editor for Special Education in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Education. Lee Ann leads MTSS & inclusion audits, leadership support, professional learning, and long-term systems redesign. Through Lead Inclusion, she directs and teaches in the Leadership for Neurodiversity Program, a six-course, online program in partnership with SDSU. Lee Ann particularly enjoys the messy, meaningful work in the space between research and practice—helping schools move beyond fragmented special education initiatives toward coherent, sustainable systems that serve all learners. In her community, she is a member of Circle of Blue, a philanthropic organization supporting Golisano Children′s at University of Kentucky.
