The Formative Assessment Action Plan: Practical Steps to More Successful Teaching and Learning

Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher

Table of Contents

About the Authors

About This Book

Join Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher as they outline a clear-cut, realistic, and rewarding approach to formative assessment. They explain how four discrete steps work in tandem to create a seamless, comprehensive formative assessment system—one that has no beginning and no end. 

This ongoing approach enhances an active give-and-take relationship between teachers and students to promote learning.

Where am I going?

Step 1: Feed-up ensures that students understand the purpose of an assignment, task, or lesson, including how they will be assessed.

Where am I now?

Step 2: Checking for understanding guides instruction and helps determine if students are making progress toward their goals.

How am I doing?

Step 3: Feedback provides students with valuable and constructive information about their successes and needs.

Where am I going next?

Step 4: Feed-forward builds on the feedback from step 3 and uses performance data to facilitate student achievement.

Dozens of real-life scenarios demonstrate how to apply these steps in your classroom, always focusing on the presence or absence of student learning to guide the action. 

By enabling teachers and students alike to see more clearly what they need to do for learning to be successful, this approach builds students’ competence, confidence, and understanding.

No matter what grade level you teach, The Formative Assessment Action Plan will help you make better use of assessment data so you can more quickly adjust instruction to keep every student on the path to success.

See the book's table of contents and read excerpts

AEP 2012 Distinguished Achievement Award Winner—Professional Development

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About the Authors

NANCY FREY, PhD is a professor of literacy in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Before joining the university faculty, Nancy was a special education teacher in the Broward County (Florida) Public Schools, where she taught students at the elementary and middle school levels. She later worked for the Florida Department of Education on a statewide project for supporting students with disabilities in a general education curriculum.  Read more

DOUGLAS FISHER, PhD is a professor of language and literacy education in the Department of Teacher Education at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. He is a member of the California Reading Hall of Fame and is the recipient of a Celebrate Literacy Award from the International Reading Association, the Farmer Award for Excellence in Writing from the National Council of Teachers of English, and a Christa McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Teacher Education from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.  Read more