Formative Assessment Study Nearing End
Offers Many Lessons, Development of Practical Tools
Nearing the end of a five-year study funded by the National Science Foundation, Professors Jamal Abedi and Paul Heckman have learned much about the status of formative assessment in mathematics and are looking forward to the launch of a website with tools for teachers and administrators early next year.
The work is important because assessing student knowledge during instruction—the heart of formative assessment—empowers teachers to address possible deficiencies in student understanding and increase student learning.
Focus Should Be on Attainment, Not Scores
Opinion: November 2012 Report on High School Graduation Rates
Federal and state leaders need to focus more on policies that improve educational attainment and college and career success and less on test scores
In November, the U.S. Department of Education released new high school graduation rates for each state, using what the department called a “common, rigorous measure.” The picture is bleak for California, which ranks 32 among other states in high school completion. More troubling are the persistent disparities between racial/ethnic groups; white graduation rate is 85 percent, whereas Latino and African American graduation rates are 70 percent and 63 percent respectively.
Study finds too many variables with eighth-grade algebra policy
Davis Enterprise, September 9, 2012
Paul Heckman, associate dean of the School of Education, is interviewed extensively in this article highlighting research conducted by Heckman and Professor Jamal Abedi. Read the full article by Jeff Hudson here.
Prof. Paul Heckman Comments in Article about Online Ed Degrees
TechCrunch, August 9, 2012
In an article about the prevalence of online education degrees, Paul Heckman, associate dean of the School of Education, commented on the contention that we don’t know how to measure learning: “Children are educated and learn over a period of time, but we have this notion that children are to make a year’s growth for every year they’re in school. This is … a problem, because children do not develop in nine-month chunks except during gestation.” Read the article here.
$3.2 Million Grant to Study Formative Assessment in Mathematics
August 2010
Professors Jamal Abedi, principal investigator, and Paul Heckman, co-investigator, received a five-year $3.2 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation. Work on “Formative Assessment in Mathematics: Current Status and Guidelines for Future Developments” starts on September 1, 2010.
