ABSTRACT
Assessment can refer to everything from standardized state and national tests to in-class projects, exams, quizzes, and portfolios, as well as more informal assessments of knowledge like daily “exit tickets” assessing students’ understanding of the day’s lesson. Leaders should ensure the school is utilizing various types of assessment, both to provide individual students with feedback on their progress and to allow faculty to analyze patterns of student performance in order to improve instruction. Summative assessments such as state tests can be reliable and broad indicators of how a student, grade, class, or school is faring academically and to identify trends in student learning. Most schools utilize summative assessment data to create intervention systems for students and to plan professional development for teachers. A typical formative assessment could be an end-of-teaching-period exit ticket in which the student demonstrates whether they mastered a single lesson.
