Today’s educators know that assessment means more than assigning and grading student work. They know assessment is an ongoing process that involves regularly gathering information about student learning, using that information to make better instructional decisions, and helping students take responsibility for their own learning. To do this work thoughtfully, teachers need a collection of effective assessment techniques that will integrate seamlessly into their everyday instructional practice.

Tools for Thoughtful Assessment is that collection. It contains over 75 easy-to-use tools that help teachers at all grade levels respond to the key challenges associated with classroom assessment.

Foreword by Bryan Goodwin

When Robert Marzano and his team published Classroom Instruction That Works in 2001, they gave educators a powerful framework for understanding education research—a framework that answered the question: Which strategies work in the classroom? More recently, a team of researchers at McREL International updated Classroom Instruction That Works, using new research to ensure that the framework and its strategies are truly our “best bets” for raising achievement.

But what many educators are looking for is the how. How do we put the power of the research to work in our classrooms? How do we adapt the generalizations in the research to meet the needs of our students? The answer: “With the right tools.” 

Tools for Classroom Instruction That Works gives educators over 50 classroom-ready tools that make it easy to put the research-based recommendations from Classroom Instruction That Works into practice tomorrow. Organized according to the renowned Classroom Instruction That Works framework, this addition to the award-winning Tools for Today’s Educators series is the simplest and most practical way to ensure higher levels of student achievement in every classroom.

Includes classroom-ready tools for

• Setting objectives and providing feedback
• Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
• Cooperative learning
• Cues, questions, and advance organizers
• Nonlinguistic representations
• Summarizing and note taking
• Assigning homework and providing practice
• Identifying similarities and differences
• Generating and testing hypotheses