by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
Using formative assessment effectively in our classrooms is one of the best ways we can help our students thrive. For our modern learners (or for any learner) formative assessment fits much better with student needs. It also better compliments the teaching and... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
A big benefit of doing formative assessment properly is that we get to know our students really well. But why is this important? It has to do with the fact that teachers don’t actually create learning, but rather encourage and facilitate it. Only learners create... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
Mindful assessment is thoughtful assessment; it’s assessment that comes from both the mind and the heart. In our best-selling book Mindful Assessment we discuss rethinking the relationship between teaching and learning. We do this through the practice of mindful... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Critical Thinking
The notion of students assessing themselves is difficult for many educators to get around, but they’re warming to the idea. If our students learn to ask the right self-assessment questions and keep themselves accountable, the results in learning improvement can... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
When it comes to classroom productivity, the ideal classroom is a happy one. It means students are creating solutions and projects that have meaning and purpose. They gladly take initiatives and assume responsible ownership of class time. Above all, it means students... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
How do we measure learners’ understanding? What sets the master teacher apart from the amateur? The masters have perfected assessment for understanding, rather than simply knowledge. However, in their oft-quoted book Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins and... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Essential Questions
For a long time we’ve advocated the use of self-reflective questions with our learners as a way for them to debrief their learning processes in the classroom in order to improve and grow. This is just as useful a practice for teachers as it is for learners, because in... by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
Why we assess learning has been a philosophical discussion happening in education on many different levels. Whatever the case may be, what we do know for certain is that it is only the learners, and not the teacher, who create learning. It is the teacher’s role to... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
When we wrote our book Mindful Assessment our mission was to provide educators the world over with a singular understanding—that it is the learner, and not the teacher, who creates learning. As teachers, it’s our responsibility to learn how to guide that... 
by Lee Watanabe-Crockett | Assessment
Formative assessment problems are a fact of life and learning. FA has its challenges to be sure. Remember that no assessment method is really 100% foolproof. There’s so much to consider and so many different students. You can fix many formative assessment...