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Deep Impact: How A Job-Embedded Formative Assessment Professional Development Model Affected Teacher Practice, Thomas A. Stewart, Gary Houchens

Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research Faculty Publications

This study supports the work of Black and Wiliam (1998), who demonstrated that when teachers effectively utilize formative assessment strategies, student learning increases significantly. However, the researchers also found a “poverty of practice” among teachers, in that few fully understood how to implement classroom formative assessment. This qualitative case study examined a series of voluntary workshops offered at one middle school designed to address this poverty of practice. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. These research questions framed the study: (1) What role did a professional learning community structure play in shaping workshop participants’ perceived effectiveness of a voluntary formative …