How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data

In this book, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart helps teachers and administrators understand the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district. Readers will learn: (1) What different kinds of data can--and cannot--tell us about student learning; (2) What different analyses reveal about changes in student achievement; (3) How to interpret, use, and share relevant data; and (4) How to create a model to go from problem to solution in a data-based decision-making process. With easy-to-understand explanations, supplemented by examples and scenarios from actual schools, this book offers a path to better understanding, more accurate interpretation of assessment results, and--most important--more effective use of data to improve teaching and learning. Following an Acknowledgments section this book contains the following chapters: (1) An Introduction to Different Kinds of Data; (2) Large-Scale Accountability Assessments; (3) Interim/Benchmark Assessments and Common Formative Assessments; (4) Classroom Grades; (5) Classroom Formative Assessment Strategies; (6) Putting It All Together: Basing Decisions on Data; (7) But Did They Learn Anything? Evaluating the Results of Your Decisions; and (8) Different Kinds of Data. The following are appended: (1) Related ASCD Resources: Student Assessment and Data; and (2) An ASCD Study Guide for How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data.