Enhancing Educational Opportunities with Formative Assessment
(Register for Sessions Below)
This fall, join Nancy Gerzon, Franchesca Warren, Cali Kaminsky, and Yesenia Ayala of WestEd’s Formative Insights team for an engaging online conversation series.
The series highlights scholarly perspectives on the intersections between student identity, classroom culture, and formative assessment levers for promoting agency and equity.
Our guests are researchers and educators who have made significant contributions to the study of learning culture and assessment for learning practices.
Each discussion will explore and share personal and professional experiences about shifting the student role in learning to the center of the education process, where students learn how to use evidence of their learning and set goals to move their knowledge forward.
The themes and topics include:
- The relationship between learning culture, classroom learning culture, and formative assessment implementation
- The role of teaching, learning, and assessing learners’ content
- The shifts required in instructional strategies with diverse learners in content areas
- Exploring how post-COVID assessment for learning practices advances student learning
The series supports Assessment for Learning efforts to create conditions necessary for equitable teaching and learning.
More information will be announced soon.
Who Should Attend?
- Teachers
- School, district, and state education leaders
- Teacher educators
- Teacher professional developers
- Researchers in the United States and abroad
Registration Information
Attendance is free.
To register, click the unique registration link for each session below. Register for as many sessions as you wish. You will receive an email confirmation, readings, and reminders to attend. We look forward to your participation!
Please contact Danny Torres at [email protected] if you have questions about the series or need more registration information.
Registered participants will also have an opportunity to submit questions for our featured guests.
SESSIONS
Session One: The Role of Formative Assessment: Enhancing Educational Opportunities for Multilingual Learners
Host & Moderator: Nancy Gerzon
Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time / 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Guest Speaker:
Lorena Llosa is a Professor of Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Trained as an applied linguist, she studies the teaching, learning, and assessment of English Learners’ content and language proficiency. Her research aims to enhance English Learners’ educational opportunities in K-16 contexts.
Her studies have focused on standards-based classroom assessments of language proficiency, assessment of academic writing, and the integration of language and content in instruction and assessment. Her recent work addresses formative assessment in classrooms with multilingual learners. This work emphasizes the importance of expanding how educators elicit student learning information, interpret it, and use the interpretation to provide feedback to support multilingual learners.
Discussion Topics
- The role of teaching, learning, and assessing English learners’ content and language proficiency
- The shifts required in instructional strategies with English learners in the content areas
- Eliciting, interpreting, and using evidence to provide feedback
Session Two: Fostering a Culture of Learning that Promotes Student Agency
Host & Moderator: Nancy Gerzon
Date: Thursday, October 20, 2022
Time: 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time / 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Guest Speaker:
Menucha Birenbaum is a Professor Emerita of educational assessment at Tel Aviv University. Her research interests include formal and informal assessment for learning (AfL); school-related contextual factors that facilitate or hinder the successful implementation of AfL, learning environments that foster learner agency; and large-scale diagnostic assessment. Currently, a research group led by her studies curiosity to conceptualize the joy of learning.
Discussion Topics
- The relationship between learning culture, classroom learning culture, and formative assessment implementation
- The role of teaching, learning, and assessing learners’ content
- The role of culture in fostering student agency
About Formative Insights
Amplifying student agency and identity is at the center of Formative Insights, our unique model of formative assessment. We help educators cultivate inclusive learning environments where students develop positive learner identities and feel equipped and empowered to direct their learning. In this model, teachers share responsibility for learning with students and effectively shift towards a lasting culture of internal accountability in which students learn from one another and their teacher. To learn more about our work, visit https://csaa.wested.org/formative-insights.