1. Presented by:
Elizabeth Marsili
elizabeth.marsili@cobbk12.org
Betsey Kennedy-Olotka
elizabeth.kennedy@cobbk12.org

2. 1. What are Common Formative Assessments?
2. Why do we need Common Formative Assessments?
What are the benefits to US as teachers? What are
the benefits to our students?
3. How do we CREATE Common
Formative Assessments?
Source: Larry Ainsworth & Donald
Viegut, Common Formative
Assessments: How to Connect
Standards-based Instruction and
Assessment (Corwin Press, 2006).

4. True of Common
Formative Assessments
NOT True of Common
Formative Assessments

5. • Periodic, SHORT
assessments
• Collaboratively designed
• Pre- and post• Should represent power
(essential) standards
• Administered to ALL
students in the grade level
or course

6. • Combinations of testtype questions including:
Selected-response and
constructed-response
• Results analyzed in
DATA TEAMS/PLC’s to
guide instruction

7. •
•
Regular feedback aligned with
the most important standards
allowing teachers to adjust
instruction to meet the diverse
needs of the students
Ongoing collaboration with
teachers in order to determine
strategies that will lead to
success for all students

8. •
Consistency in expectations
across the grade level
• Agreed on expectations for
different levels of proficiency
• Deliberate alignment of
classroom, school, district and
state assessments to better
prepare students for success
on state assessments.

10. “It is critical that all of the assessed standards
be truly significant. From an instructional
perspective, it is better for tests to measure a
handful of powerful skills accurately than it is
for tests to do an inaccurate job of measuring
many skills.”
~ W. J. Popham, Test Better, Teach Better, 2003, p. 143