Chapter 1. The Lay of The Land: Essential Elements of the Formative Assessment Process

When a windmill whirls into action, its individual blades seem to disappear. The same thing happens to the six elements of the formative assessment process. These interrelated elements are the following:

• Shared learning targets and criteria for success
• Feedback that feeds learning forward
• Student self-assessment and peer assessment
• Student goal setting
• Strategic teacher questioning
• Student engagement in asking effective questions

As teachers and students actively and intentionally engage in learning, the individual elements unite in a flurry of cognitive activity, working together interdependently. Their power comes from their combined effort.

What Is Formative Assessment?

Formative assessment is an active and intentional learning process that partners the teacher and the students to continuously and systematically gather evidence of learning with the express goal of improving student achievement. Intentional learning refers to cognitive processes that have learning as a goal rather than an incidental outcome (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1989). Teachers and their students actively and intentionally engage in the formative assessment process when they work together to do the following (Brookhart, 2006):

• Focus on learning goals.
• Take stock of where current work is in relation to the goal.
• Take action to move closer to the goal.

The primary purpose of formative assessment is to improve learning, not merely to grade or audit it. It is assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning. Formative assessment is both an "instructional tool" that teachers and their students "use while learning is occurring" and "an accountability tool to determine if learning has occurred" (National Education Association, 2003, p. 3). In other words, to be "formative," assessments must inform the decisions that teachers and their students make minute by minute in the classroom. Figure 1.1 compares the characteristics of formative assessment and summative assessment.

Figure 1.1. Characteristics of Formative and Summative Assessment

Here are some examples of the formative assessment process in the classroom:

• A teacher asks students in her 6th grade social studies class to form pairs to generate three strategic questions that will help them better meet their learning target of describing how erosion has produced physical patterns on the Earth's surface that have affected human activities.
• Before a lesson on creating a family budget, a consumer science teacher states the learning target for the lesson and asks the students to paraphrase it.
• In a high school English class, students use a rubric that they generated as a class to plan their essays, monitor their writing, and edit their drafts in order to meet the success criteria for a high-quality essay.
• In his feedback to a 1st grade student, a teacher shows the student what she did correctly in her attempt to draw the life cycle of a frog. Then the teacher gives the student a strategy to use to improve the accuracy of her drawing before she turns in her final sketch.
• A middle school student decides to use a story map to plan his short story depicting life in the Victorian era. It will help him reach his goal of improving the organization and sequencing of his story.

How Does a Learning Target Theory of Action Guide the Formative Assessment Process?

At its core, the formative assessment process aligns what happens in the classroom—day to day and minute by minute—with three central questions:

• Where am I going?
• Where am I now?
• What strategy or strategies can help me get to where I need to go?

These central questions guide everything the teacher does, everything the student does, and everything teachers and their students do together. The questions are deceptively simple, yet to address them students and teachers must become skilled assessors who can gather evidence about where student understanding is in relation to a shared learning target. Only then can the teacher-student learning team use the evidence to make informed decisions about what to do next and choose strategies that have the best chance to close the gap and raise student achievement.

This continuous process of intentionally gathering and using evidence of student learning to make decisions about next steps is succinctly described in our learning target theory of action (Moss & Brookhart, 2012), which states that "[t]he most effective teaching and the most meaningful student learning happen when teachers design the right learning target for today's lesson and use it along with their students to aim for and assess understanding" (p. 9). To engage in formative assessment, then, teachers must work to design and share a learning target for the lesson, use that target (and have their students use it) to assess present levels of student understanding, and then partner with students to strategically narrow the gap between where the students are and where they need to go to reach mastery. Once a learning target is mastered, a new "just right" target is set and the process continues forward. It comes down to the Goldilocks Principle: to generate motivation to learn, the level of challenge and the level of support must be just right. And that means all classroom decisions—those made by the teacher and those made by the students themselves—must be informed by up-to-the-minute evidence of student learning in relation to the lesson's specific learning target.

A learning target theory of action and the three central questions of formative assessment are a great starting point for school leaders as they help teachers recognize and use the formative assessment process in their classrooms. They can guide teachers as they (1) plan their lessons, (2) monitor their teaching, and (3) help their students become self-regulated, assessment-capable learners. Teachers can display the three questions along with the lesson's learning target in their classrooms and remind their students to think about them before, during, and after each learning experience.

How Does the Formative Assessment Process Affect Student Learning and Achievement?

There is a firm body of evidence that formative assessment is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement. We know of no other way of raising standards for which such a strong prima facie case can be made.

—Paul Black & Dylan Wiliam, "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment" (1998)

The research is clear: formative assessment works. It works because it has a direct, evidence-based effect on the two most important players in the teaching-learning process: the teacher and the student.

In too many classrooms, teachers and their students are flying blind. Teachers cannot point to strong evidence of exactly what their students know and exactly where their students are in relation to daily classroom learning targets. The lack of detailed and current evidence makes it particularly difficult for teachers to provide effective feedback that describes for students the next steps they should take to improve their understanding and their work. Students are operating in the dark as well. Without knowing how to assess and regulate their own learning, they cannot be their own agents, capable of making decisions about how to improve their learning and their work while they are learning and working. By contrast, when teachers partner with their students to use evidence of learning to make continual adjustments to improve learning, those adjustments are more likely to be effective (Wiliam, 2018).

Effects on Teacher Quality

Teacher quality exerts a strong influence on student achievement (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Hanushek, Kain, O'Brien, & Rivkin, 2005; Thompson & Wiliam, 2007). What's more, research tells us that teachers become more effective as they develop strategies for evaluating the impact of their own teaching practices on students' learning (Darling-Hammond, 2013). Formative assessment helps increase teacher quality because it operates at the core of effective teaching (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Elmore, 2004) and helps teachers to gauge their influence during each lesson (Moss & Brookhart, 2015). Through the formative assessment process, classrooms become the setting for meaningful professional learning: teachers learn about effective teaching by studying the effectiveness of their own instructional decisions. This practice promotes continuous improvement based on evidence that is relevant, authentic, and transformational.

Learning to teach better by examining one's own teaching practices is much more effective than attempting to apply professional development focused on using best practices in the classroom. Studies (e.g., Devine, Fahie, & MacGillicuddy, 2013; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014; Turner, Christensen, & Meyer, 2009) clearly show that teachers do not always adopt the research-based best practices they read about or learn in workshops. Rather, teachers teach in ways they believe to be best, often ignoring the findings of educational research. The distinction here is critical. Teachers' beliefs not only determine what they do in the classroom but also influence what they count as evidence that learning has occurred. And unless professional learning experiences help teachers examine their working assumptions about how students learn and how good teaching supports learning, they will not make meaningful changes in their teaching practices (Moss, 2002).

Formative assessment can have a transformational effect on teachers and teaching (see Figure 1.2). Because it promotes evidence-based self-assessment, the formative assessment process reveals individual teaching decisions so that teachers can see clearly (perhaps for the first time) the difference between the intent and the impact of their actions. Armed with this new perspective, teachers can take constructive action in their classrooms. They begin to collect and use strong evidence of exactly what works and exactly what does not work with their students. And, as they critically examine their own knowledge, practices, and working assumptions—during each day, each lesson, and each interaction with their students—they become inquiry-minded and keenly aware of exactly where they need to focus their improvement efforts and what next steps they need to take to raise student achievement.

Figure 1.2. Impact of the Formative Assessment Process on Teachers

Effects on Student Learning

The effects of the formative assessment process on student learning are even more dramatic. Students not only learn content but also learn how to learn. Students learn more, learn smarter, and grow into self-aware learners who can tell you exactly what they did to get to exactly where they are. In other words, students become self-regulated learners and assessment-capable, data-driven decision makers. They learn to gather evidence about their own learning and to use that information to choose from a growing collection of strategies for success. And in addition to learning how to take ownership of their learning, students increasingly view themselves as autonomous, confident, and capable.

This combination of learning factors—ownership, autonomy, confidence, and capability—fortifies students with increased levels of resilience. Raising student resilience can derail a dangerous cycle for many students who attribute their failure to perform well on classroom tasks to a lack of academic ability. Judging themselves to be incapable of achieving and powerless to change things, they become discouraged and quit trying (Boston, 2002; McMillan, 2017). Resilient learners, by contrast, bounce back from poor performances and adversities. They attribute their failures and their successes alike to factors within their control. They rebound rather than giving up in the face of a challenge. Resilient students believe in their capacity to adapt what they are doing and how they are doing it in order to succeed. The formative assessment process helps create a classroom climate that cultivates mindfulness, nonjudgmental awareness, cognitive flexibility, and self-regulation—all characteristics that promote student resilience (Jimenez, Niles, & Park, 2010).

And although formative assessment has a significant effect on learning for all students, it "helps low achievers more than other students and so reduces the range of achievement while raising achievement overall" (Black & Wiliam, 1998). For reasons we mention here and for many more we explore in subsequent chapters, the formative assessment process is a compelling force for increasing student learning and closing the achievement gap.

How Does Formative Assessment Forge a Teacher-Student Learning Partnership?

High-quality formative assessment blurs the artificial barriers dividing teaching, learning, and assessment to forge a culture of collaborative inquiry and evidence-based improvement in the classroom. As this learning partnership grows stronger, conversations about learning become the rule of thumb rather than the exception to the rule. Teachers and students work together to gather information about the strengths and weaknesses of their performances in ways that inform all learners and all learning in the classroom. They do this by talking with one another, planning with one another, comparing evidence of learning, and setting shared learning goals that establish the parameters of what counts as evidence that learning has indeed occurred.

The bottom line is that formative assessment fundamentally changes the quality and quantity of teacher-student interactions. And every day, throughout the day, what happens in the classroom focuses squarely on student achievement.

What Common Misconceptions Might Teachers Hold About Formative Assessment? 

Misconceptions are the inevitable result of misunderstanding and often cause teachers to question the formative assessment process. Clearly these misconceptions can dilute the effectiveness of formative assessment and block its consistent use in the classroom. School leaders can take an active role in helping teachers build accurate understandings of what formative assessment is and, perhaps most important, what it is not. They can include strategic talking points in their initial and ongoing conversations with teachers about formative assessment. Here we identify common misconceptions and suggest strategic talking points for each.

Misconception #1: Formative assessment is a special kind of test or series of tests that teachers learn to use to find out what their students know. This is probably the most common misconception regarding formative assessment. It is directly related to our careless custom of using the terms assessment and test interchangeably. Is it any wonder teachers mistakenly assume that formative assessment is a special kind of test item, test, or series of tests—something that they must administer to their students to audit learning?

Strategic talking points school leaders can use to address this misconception include the following:

• Formative assessment is not a test item, a test, or a series of tests.
• Formative assessment is an intentional learning process that teachers engage in with their students to gather information during the learning process to improve achievement.
• Formative assessment is a learning partnership that involves teachers and their students taking stock of where they are in relation to their learning goals.

Misconception #2: Formative assessment is a program that teachers adopt and add to what they already do. This misconception can be traced directly to traditional inservice workshop models of professional development. More times than not, teachers are asked to enact a program or technique prescribed by outside experts and presented to them in a one-shot workshop. It stands to reason, then, that teachers often view formative assessment as a program or method they must learn and add to what they already do. This misguided view often leads teachers to wonder how they will find time to "do formative assessment" along with everything else they already "do" in their classrooms. This additive perspective makes it particularly difficult for teachers to recognize formative assessment as a dynamic process that shifts the classroom focus from instruction to learning and represents much more than simply adding a new technique to what currently exists.

Strategic talking points school leaders can use to address this misconception include the following:

• Formative assessment is not a prepackaged program or set of techniques that teachers adopt and enact.
• Formative assessment is a philosophy of teaching and learning in which the purpose of assessing is to inform learning, not merely to audit it.
• The formative assessment process is a fundamental reframing of the work teachers and students do day to day and minute by minute in the classroom.

Misconception #3: Any practice that gathers information for the purpose of improving programs or improving teaching is a part of formative assessment. The final misconception lies at the core of what qualifies a practice as formative assessment. Some educators mistakenly conclude that when teachers use assessment information to redesign or change a lesson, they meet the criteria of formative assessment. For example, a high school history teacher notes a troubling pattern on the final exam for her World War II unit. Half of her students mistakenly identified Germany as the country that suffered the most lasting damage from the war. As a result, she plans to change the way she teaches that content to her students next year. She intends to spend more time discussing the concept of lasting damage so that her future students can draw conclusions that are more accurate. In this example, the teacher uses information gathered after instruction to plan improved learning experiences for future students. Although the teacher's plan is laudable, it is not an example of formative assessment.

Strategic talking points school leaders can use to address this misconception include the following:

• To be considered part of the formative assessment process, information gathered must be used to inform the learning of current students.
• Although the quality of teaching rises as a result of formative assessment, the intended outcome must be to raise the learning and achievement of the students currently in the classroom on the concepts, processes, and skills that formed the basis for the assessment.

What Is the Connection Between Formative Assessment and Motivation?

The term motivation comes from the root word motive, which means "something that causes a person to act." Using that root, we can define motivation as something that energizes, directs, and sustains behavior toward a goal. Another way to say this is that motivation is goal-directed behavior combined with the energy and the intention to work toward that goal. In a very real way, motivation gets students learning, points them in the right direction, and keeps them engaged.

Although teachers cannot "give" motivation to their students, they can nurture, foster, and help their students develop more of it. Many educators view motivation as something that comes from external factors such as rewards, incentives, punishments, and warnings: carrots and sticks. This view is not exactly flawed, because one form of motivation—extrinsic motivation—fits nicely into this description. The crux of the matter, though, is that extrinsic motivation applied to the classroom requires that the teacher use rewards (such as stickers, grades, free time, bonus points) and punishments (such as loss of recess, detention, lowering a grade) to control the motivation of students. It follows that students will only be motivated as long as they are under the control of the teacher. Without the teacher, the motivation disappears. So much for lifelong learning!

In fact, research tells us that extrinsic rewards can actually undermine a student's internal (intrinsic) motivation over time. The most detrimental practices involve giving rewards as a direct function of a student's performance. These rewards follow a common pattern. Students who perform the best get the most rewards, and those who perform less well get fewer or no rewards. For students who cannot meet the requirements, this type of external control chips away at them over time to weaken their motivation to learn, undercut their performance, and leave them demoralized (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). Understanding this effect, then, teachers should use extrinsic rewards sparingly and always as part of a plan to activate intrinsic motivation so that the external rewards can be gradually decreased and eventually removed.

By contrast, the formative assessment process has no downside. In fact, it is strongly linked to increased intrinsic student motivation. Like the windmill, formative assessment helps students harness the workings of their own minds to continuously generate and strengthen these four important components of motivation to learn:

• Self-efficacy—A learner's belief in his ability to succeed in a particular situation
• Self-regulation—The degree to which a learner is metacognitively, motivationally, and actively participating in her own learning
• Self-assessment—A learner's act of observing, analyzing, and judging his own performance on the basis of criteria and determining how he can improve it
• Self-attribution—A learner's own perceptions or explanations for success or failure that determine the amount of effort she will expend on that activity in the future

Throughout the remaining chapters, we will further unpack what we call the "motivation connection" by examining how the specific elements of the formative assessment process link to the components of intrinsic motivation. Figure 1.3 highlights those links and previews our upcoming examinations of the power of the formative assessment process to generate motivation to learn.

Figure 1.3. Links Between Formative Assessment and Intrinsic Motivation

How Will I Recognize the Formative Assessment Process When I See It?

Because formative assessment is a systematic and intentional process of gathering evidence of learning, you can observe its effects in the classroom. These effects include what the teacher does, what the students do, what the products and performances look like, and how teachers talk about their students' learning. Figure 1.4 (p. 19) shows some examples of what you can look for inside the classroom. In upcoming chapters we share more "look-fors" as we examine the specific elements of the formative assessment process.

Figure 1.4. Recognizing the Formative Assessment Process

How Can I Model the Formative Assessment Process in Conversations with Teachers About Their Own Professional Learning?

The formative assessment process constantly uses up-to-the-minute evidence from what students do, say, make, and write during the lesson to guide teaching and learning (Moss & Brookhart, 2015). When school leaders enter into collaborative inquiry with teachers, they not only model the formative assessment process but also embody it. Research on professional development tells us that when principals engage in periodic, short, focused, individual conversations with a teacher, they advance professional learning and produce positive change in teacher behavior in ways that far surpass the effects of the traditional "sit and get" workshops (Hall & Hord, 2000). In fact, one of the most strategic actions school leaders can take to bring about increased student achievement is to center their efforts directly on the inner workings of the classroom (Elmore, 2000).

School leaders can use formative discussions with teachers to promote "systematic and intentional inquiry" (Moss, 2000; Moss & Brookhart, 2012, 2015) into their classroom practices. Formative assessment operates at the nexus of what teachers believe to be true about teaching and learning, how those beliefs shape the ways teachers choose to teach, and the effects of instructional decisions on student achievement and motivation to learn. Each element of the formative assessment process helps educators assess what they are doing in their classrooms, why they are doing it, and how their choices are affecting their students. And because the formative assessment process requires teachers to use information about student learning to guide and promote student achievement, it helps their instructional decisions become increasingly intentional and scientifically based. The ability of formative assessment to promote and sustain active teacher inquiry that is both systematic and intentional is exactly why it can have a significant effect on daily classroom practices. Simply put, formative assessment situates powerful professional learning in the heartbeat of the classroom and encourages educators to approach their teaching as "intentional learning" (Moss, 2001).

As schools become places of collaborative inquiry, school leaders can use formative discussions to take a collegial rather than a supervisory perspective on professional learning, focus on each teacher's unique expertise and professional learning needs, and promote teacher collaboration to improve instruction (Moss & Brookhart, 2012, 2015). School leaders can use well-chosen starter statements that encourage shared inquiry. These starter statements situate the interaction as a formative conversation, center it on professional self-analysis of patterns of practice rather than ramifications of particular incidents, and keep the dialogue free from judgment or evaluation. The statements signal that the teacher is in charge of his or her own professional learning and indicate interest and support. These formative conversations can preview or follow a scheduled classroom visit with a single teacher. In addition, they can serve or launch collaborative inquiry among individuals in a small group or an entire school.

Strategic conversation starters signal that teachers are in charge of their own professional learning and indicate your interest and support. Here are some examples of how to begin a formative conversation with an individual teacher:

• I know you pride yourself on reaching and teaching all students. I'd like to spend some time thinking with you about ways to collect strong evidence that students are learning and achieving in each lesson.
• I wanted to catch up and talk with you more about strategies you are using to increase student goal setting and self-assessment.
• The last time we talked you were concerned that your students were not skilled at regulating their own learning, and you planned to use rubrics to help them become more competent in that area. Talk with me a bit about your students' self-regulation progress.

Here are some examples of how you might begin a formative conversation with a group:

• We are acutely aware of the need for our students to improve their reading abilities. Think with me about strategies we can all commit to using and monitoring that will increase the quality of reading for understanding across grade levels and the curriculum. In our conversations, let's be sure that these strategies meet the criteria for formative assessment.
• During my classroom walkthroughs this week, I want to concentrate on the ways we are integrating formative assessment into our daily classroom practice and specifically focus on how we are sharing the learning target for the lesson with our students. Think with me about the kinds of evidence we can look for to enable us to conclude that students understand exactly what they are supposed to be learning and that they are aiming for that learning target during the lesson. This will help us focus our planning and our instruction.
• It looks like we are making great progress in our efforts to provide effective feedback to our students. Let's keep that focus in the mix as we discuss how we can continuously and systematically improve the quality of our student feedback by sharing the feedback strategies that work best for each of us and the evidence that we gather to increase our confidence in these strategies.

Notice that all the examples open with an invitation to the teachers to think with you. The examples begin a conversation about teaching rather than signal an interrogation. Interrogation can trigger unwanted emotional baggage, derail collaborative inquiry efforts, be interpreted as confrontational, and signal that a grilling is waiting in the wings (Downey, Steffy, English, Frase, & Poston, 2004). Formative conversations, by contrast, build a culture of collaborative inquiry and continuous improvement (Moss & Brookhart, 2015).

What If?

Given the realities of schools and schooling, there is a good chance teachers are already dealing with a variety of initiatives to improve teaching and learning and may be confused about how formative assessment is distinguished from other forms of assessment or data gathering. What if you overhear a conversation among a group of teachers about how they feel benchmark assessments are the same as formative assessment?

The first point to use to address this misconception is that benchmark assessments are interim assessments—they take place periodically, and although they are important for gauging student learning relative to content standards at a particular point in time, they do not inform minute-by-minute student and teacher decisions about what to do next to improve learning. Formative assessment, by contrast, is a learning process and a learning partnership that provides real-time evidence teachers and students can use to adjust teaching and learning strategies during the lesson. And although benchmark assessments can tell teachers where students are in relation to the benchmark, the formative assessment process helps both teachers and students assess student understanding all along the way by revealing where students are now in relation to a shared learning target for the lesson.

Second, focus the teachers' attention on how the information from benchmark assessments is used compared with how formative assessment informs learning in real time—day to day and minute by minute in the classroom. Do benchmark assessments inform the learning for current students with the current learning target so improvement can happen during the lesson?

Perhaps most important, help teachers see that benchmark assessments do not involve students in the assessment process. During formative assessment, students are intentionally involved as assessment-capable goal-setters and goal-getters. They can regulate their own learning by gathering evidence about their own learning process and progress. Formative assessment informs learning, and it puts students in the driver's seat.

Reflecting on the Essential Elements of the Formative Assessment Process

Formative assessment is an intentional learning process that involves teachers and their students in an active partnership focused on improving achievement and generating motivation to learn. As you reflect on the kind of learning environment formative assessment will help teachers in your school create for and with their students, consider the following questions:

• Do both teachers and students intentionally focus on gathering and using quality evidence from what students do, say, make, and write to inform decisions about improving student learning, or are teachers the only assessors and decision makers?
• Do teachers see assessment as something they use to audit, grade, or certify learning after a lesson or series of lessons rather than as a process for improving student learning during the lesson?
• Does everyone in the classroom share responsibility for learning, or is the teacher responsible for saying what has been learned, who has learned it, and what needs to be learned next?
• Are there classrooms where teachers and their students partner in the formative assessment process day to day and minute by minute? Are there classrooms where teachers use formative assessment strategies in stand-alone ways that you can build on to ensure that formative assessment is woven into the very fabric of the lesson? Are there classrooms with little evidence of formative assessment? How can you encourage teachers to work together, share their thinking, and view one another as valuable resources as they individually and collectively work to improve the quality of the formative assessment process in their classrooms?

Summing It Up

The formative assessment process costs nothing. You can help teachers put it to work for every age and grade level in every subject during each minute of every school day. This powerful learning process enhances the learning of those who are already excelling, jump-starts and sustains learners who are smoldering with potential, and increases achievement for all students. What's more, formative assessment raises teacher quality and forges learning partnerships between students and teachers that make a huge difference in what happens every minute in each lesson.

One word of encouragement and caution: The formative assessment process, like any other reframing of what happens in classrooms, will take time to grow and influence the culture of a school. Keep in mind that it is a learning process for all learners in the school—the students, the teachers, and the administrators. The good news is that when a school commits to creating learning opportunities like the ones we discuss in the remainder of the book, good things begin to happen immediately and multiply quickly. (Chapter 8 explores taking formative assessment schoolwide in greater detail.)

In the chapters that follow, we explore the six elements of the formative assessment process. Each chapter includes specific and practical strategies to help you give teachers both the research base and the how-to information that they will need to implement formative assessment in their own classrooms to increase student achievement and motivation to learn.