Formative Assessment in High School Communities of Practice: Creating a Culture of Inquiry, Introspection, and Improvement

Abstract

Although assessment concepts bridge all levels, senior high school educators face pressures regarding assessment of and for learning that are quite different from elementary or middle school educators, particularly in the Alberta context. This vignette of an assessment focus in two very large, urban high schools outlines my perspective as both a principal and a district director – influenced by the conceptual frames of Elmore’s (2002) Instructional Core, Wenger, McDermott and Snyder’s (2002) Communities of Practice, Conzemius and O’Neill’s (2002) SMART Goals, Boudet, City and Murnane’s (2005) Data Wise Improvement Cycle, Friesen’s (2009) Teaching Effectiveness Framework, and the Galileo Educational Network’s (2013) Discipline-Based Inquiry. As a school principal, I eliminated our school professional development committee and gave the days to our individual curriculum department Communities of Practices to meet their needs and support their SMART outcomes. We were very diligent in following the assessment frameworks we designed as a school to improve learning for all ability levels and programs of our students. As a district administrator, I have allocated resources in non-typical ways to allow principals, assistant principals, and learning leaders the time to engage in ongoing conversation about rich task design and formative assessment. I have both enabled and required these instructional leaders to collect and share evidence of student intellectual engagement in their classrooms and throughout their schools.