Assessment And Student Success In A Differentiated Classroom

Make assessments more valid, reliable, and student-centred by differentiating them to your students' readiness, interest, and learning preference. The leading expert on differentiation, Carol Ann Tomlinson, joins measurement and assessment expert Tonya R. Moon to provide you with an in-depth understanding of how to improve your assessment process in all grade levels and subject areas. Discover how to use pre-assessments, formative assessments, summative assessments, grading, and report cards to differentiate teaching. And get a framework for assessment that helps you:

• Increase students' interest and motivation.
• Clarify your understanding about what is most important to teach.
• Identify students' individual similarities and differences so you can reach more students, more effectively.
• Decrease assessment error and teacher bias.

Throughout, Tomlinson and Moon emphasise the importance of maintaining a consistent focus on the essential knowledge, understandings, and skills that all students must acquire, no matter what their starting point.

Detailed scenarios illustrate how assessment differentiation can occur in three realms (student readiness, interest, and learning style or preference) and how it can improve assessment validity and reliability and decrease errors and teacher bias.

Grounded in research and the authors' teaching experience, Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom outlines a common-sense approach that is both thoughtful and practical, and that empowers teachers and students to discover, strive for, and achieve their true potential.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Differentiation: An Overview

Chapter 2. Assessment and Differentiation: A Framework for Understanding

Chapter 3. Pre-assessment: Knowing Where Students Are as a Unit Begins

Chapter 4. Ongoing Assessment: Knowing Where Students Are as a Unit Evolves

Chapter 5. Summative Assessment: Measuring Student Learning at Key Points in a Unit

Chapter 6. Assessment, Grading, and Differentiation

Chapter 7. A Look Back and Ahead

Appendix: Suggested Readings in Differentiated Instruction

References

About the Authors