Since 2015, the Sunnyside Unified School District (SUSD) in Tucson, AZ has been engaged in a multi-year effort to support the development of formative assessment, or the process by which teachers and students notice, recognize, and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning in real time.

During the 2020-21 school year, the Region 15 Comprehensive Center (R15CC) provided technical assistance to support SUSD’s effort to enhance teachers’ formative assessment practices, including in online contexts.

This report describes the implementation of these practices in the district, which can be used by other districts as they examine their own formative assessment practices. The report:

  • introduces the research questions,
  • describes the data collected,
  • presents key findings, and
  • concludes with a summary, reflection questions, and a discussion to guide reflection on the results and the overall project.

Jessica Arnold, Tran Keys, Tuyet Tran, Ryan Huynh, and Ryan Lewis contributed to this report.