The Virginia School Consortium for Learning offers professional learning and formative assessment support that as Dr. John Almarode says is aligned importantly with high-effect size best practices in the classroom. We believe the basics of effective teaching is what makes a real and lasting difference in learning. I believe that VaSCL’s formative assessment model is the sweet spot that ensures students receive the instructional intervention they need when they need it – not after gaps grow.
Our divisions should invest in high-quality materials and useful tools. We should be thoughtful about the assessments we use. But student progress depends on the teacher who brings these pieces together—building relationships, teaching for rigorous thinking, noticing what students reveal about their learning, and acting on that evidence in time to make a difference.
Assessment of learning and benchmark tests have a place, but their results may arrive after students have struggled for days or weeks. A teacher cannot wait for the next testing window to discover that a learner needs help now.
Our students often have access to excellent instructional materials, a new technology program, and more tests than anyone needs. Yet none of those resources can observe the hesitation in a student’s voice, ask a better question, or change tomorrow’s lesson because today’s learning did not go as planned. That work belongs to a teacher.
Teachers who build strong relationships with learners know more than their students’ names. They learn how students think, what gives them confidence, and when a student who appears quiet is actually confused. A teacher’s trust makes it more likely that students will try a challenging task, explain an idea, make a mistake, and try again. Paired with evidence-based instructional practices, that relationship becomes a powerful condition for progress and high achievement.
Our newly revised Standards of Learning call for more than remembering information. Students must reason, apply knowledge, solve problems, and communicate what they understand. They must work at the higher levels of Webb’s Depth of Knowledge - mirroring the verbs in Virginia’s standards. Teachers make those expectations real through the questions they ask, the tasks they design, the conversations they invite, and the feedback they give. They also need to know, while learning is underway, whether those choices are working for every student.
That is why assessment for learning belongs in the daily learning cycle. A quick check, an exit slip, a short constructed response, or an oral check-in can show what students understand and where their thinking has gone astray. Sometimes the assessment itself helps students learn: explaining an answer or revising a response makes their thinking visible to them as well as to the teacher. This evidence helps a teacher plan the next day’s instruction with intention.
The response may be a new example, a different explanation, a small-group conversation, or a chance to practice with immediate feedback. A student who has mastered the concept may be ready for a more complex application. The goal is a quick turnaround: respond while a misunderstanding is still small enough to address before it becomes a wider gap. VaSCL formative assessment items and tasks are designed to give teachers immediate information to help meet learners’ needs.
This daily evidence also gives professional learning communities a reason to collaborate. Together, teachers can ask: What do we want students to learn? How will we know what they understand? What will we do when they have not learned it yet? How will we extend learning for those who have? Looking at student work together can turn those questions into stronger lessons and timely support across classrooms. And, when teachers see what students need today and act on it together tomorrow, more students have the chance to succeed.