ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the formative assessment design cycle as a process for supporting teachers as co-designers of formative assessment tasks as well as a place for teachers to reflect upon student thinking and plan next steps for instruction. Reviews of research on teacher professional development have clearly indicated that long-term, site-specific programs are the most effective at improving teacher practice and, in turn, positively impacting student learning. Practice-based professional education, as these types of professional learning experiences have come to be called, creates space for teachers to learn in and from practice by engaging in collective inquiry into problems that arise the course of their daily work. Effective teacher learning communities can serve as fertile ground for collaborative critical inquiry, where teachers identify a need to improve their practices and agree on the importance of support and feedback from their colleagues as they work together to design instructional experiences.
