Future Ready Learning

As technology gives us the capability to improve on long-standing assessment approaches, our
public education system has a responsibility to use the information we collect during assessment
in ways that can have the greatest impact on learning. This means using assessments that ask
students to demonstrate what they have learned in meaningful ways. And students and parents
know there is more to a sound education than picking the right answer on a multiple-choice
question or answering an extended-response question outside of the context of students’ daily
lives. All learners deserve assessments that better reflect what they know and are able to do with
that knowledge.
Approaches to Assessment
Various types of assessments are appropriate for different uses and at different times. Summative
assessments measure student knowledge and skills at a specific point in time. Summative assessments
often are administered in common to a group of students, whether an entire class, grade
level at a school, or grade level across a district. These assessment results can help to determine
whether students are meeting standards in a given subject and to evaluate the effectiveness of an
instructional curriculum or model. 4
Many PK–12 schools administer formal summative tests at the end of the year, which they may
augment with interim tests earlier in the year. These assessments provide system-wide data on
student achievement as well as data by sub-groups of learners. 5 The data can provide valuable
insights regarding the achievement and progress of all students, including efforts to promote
equitable access to excellent educational opportunities and to narrow achievement gaps.
In contrast, formative assessments are frequent, instructionally embedded checks for understanding
that provide quick, continual snapshots of student progress across time. Formative
assessments provide information during the instructional process, before summative assessments
are administered. Both teachers and students can use the results from formative assessments to
determine what actions to take to help promote further learning. These assessments help identify
students’ understanding, inform and improve the instructional practice of teachers, and help
students track their own learning. 6
Optimally, a comprehensive assessment system balances multiple assessment approaches to
ensure that students, families, educators, and policymakers have timely and appropriate information
to support individual learners and to make good decisions to strengthen educational
systems overall.
Using Assessment Data to Support Learning
In almost all aspects of our daily lives, data help us personalize and adapt experiences to
our individual needs. However, there is much work remaining to realize the full potential
of using assessment data to improve learning. One recent study of teacher perceptions of
the use of data revealed a range of frustrations with many current implementations. These
frustrations include being overwhelmed with large amounts of data from disparate sources,
incompatibility of data systems and tools that make data analysis unnecessarily time-consuming,
inconsistency in the level of detail and quality of data, and delays in being able to
access data in time to modify instruction. 7
OFFICE OF Educational Technology
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