Professional Learning

Educators and policymakers can gain deep insight into student learning by mining rich sets of assessment and accountability data. But they need support to understand what the data mean, and the types of assessments that yield insight into learning best at the classroom, district and state levels. We work to support that professional learning, and to educate the public about appropriate assessment use and interpretation.

Recent Professional Learning Projects

Assessment system reviews

In partnerships with districts in multiple states, we worked with classroom teachers and school/district leaders to inventory and evaluate the assessments students took in core content areas in a given year. In these reviews, the goal is to identify assessments that are unnecessary or incoherent with a district’s instructional vision. The assessment lineup is then revised to better support teaching and learning.

State collaboratives

The Center facilitates three state collaboratives for the Council of Chief State School Officers, focused on balanced assessment, accountability systems and reporting, and technical issues in large-scale assessments. Through these collaboratives, Center experts facilitate the professional learning of more than 120 state education leaders and company partners.

Assessment culture

In a project with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), our team worked to define the elements of a healthy assessment culture that supports high-quality teaching and learning in schools.