Defining a Vision for Good Classroom Assessment Practices

SERVE has collaborated with Bay District Schools in Florida in a systemic, long-term approach to supporting teachers in improving their classroom assessment practices. In this project, teacher teams assisted by SERVE’s Nancy McMunn identified five principles for classroom assessment. These principles define what the district believes or values regarding good classroom assessment practice. As a whole, these principles define a quality classroom assessment system that includes not only assessment practice but also classroom grading and reporting procedures.

A Bay District document called, The Classroom Assessment Guidelines, includes information on each of the following.

• Principles – What do we believe about classroom assessment? (See five principles listed below).
• Goals – Why do we believe in the principles?
• Guidelines – How are the principles implemented in the classroom?

Links to each principle and self-assessment:

Principle 1 – The primary purpose of assessment is to improve learning for all students.  

Principle 2 – Assessment is aligned to standards.  

Principle 3 – Assessment is a process that is reflective of quality.  

Principle 4 – Grading is fair, consistent, and meaningful.  

Principle 5 – Communication among stakeholders is timely, appropriate to audience, and aligned to standards.  

For the purpose of this section of the SERVE Assessment website we will use these Classroom Assessment guidelines as a structure to assist teachers in a self-analysis of their current assessment practices. For each of these five principles above, two resources are available by clicking on the links for each principle.

• A page of the guidelines that describe indicators for implementation.
• A page containing the Assessment Literacy Continuums for each principle that describes the levels of implementation for each of the guidelines for each principle. Print out these PDF files to gain a better understanding of the levels of classroom implementation, from awareness to skilled, which lead toward assessment literacy. These five rubric pages can help teachers self-assess both individually and in groups (as a way of beginning the professional growth goal setting process.)