Assessment-Powered Teaching

"There is now compelling research that assessment can be used to improve both student learning and professional practice. Nancy Sindelar provides practical examples of how teachers, teams, schools, and districts are using assessment to drive continuous improvement."
―Richard Dufour, Educational Author and Consultant

"This book provides specific strategies to unlock the mystery of data, outlining step-by-step processes on how to use it to impact teaching and create tools to keep students actively involved in their improved learning."
―Gail Gorry, Principal
Frontier Elementary School, Payson, AZ

Knowledge is power, and this book puts assessment data and instruction together in a step-by-step format. Instead of dreading the time testing takes from teaching, you can harness its power to define learning targets, build standards-based assessments, gather and use test data in the classroom, and develop data-driven teaching strategies. Assessment expert Nancy W. Sindelar provides practical tools that help teachers:

• Use formative and summative assessment results to enhance instruction
• Motivate students by providing clear learning targets
• Utilize technology to analyze students′ progress
• Raise test scores

Included are testimonials from teachers, numerous data analysis examples, rubrics, and a chapter on culturally diverse schools. Designed to be adaptable, this book is a powerful resource for teachers, teacher teams, and all educators dedicated to enhancing student learning.

Nancy W. Sindelar is consultant to schools across the country in the areas of standards-based curriculum and assessment alignment (including alignment to the Common Core State Standards), collection, use and interpretation of student test data, teacher mentorship and the development of high-performing teacher teams. By focusing on data-driven instruction, She has helped schools move from state academic “watchlists’ to “most improved status, based on state test scores.

Sindelar is an Executive Consultant on assessment for the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). The author of Using Test Data for Student Achievement: Answers to No Child Left Behind, she also teaches graduate courses at California State University and Roosevelt University, specializing in leadership of effective organizations, school supervision, school law, school curriculum and educational assessment.

She brings more than thirty years’ experience in public education, as a teacher, department chair, assistant principal and assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment as well as a university professor. She received her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, a master’s degree from DePaul University, a certificate of advanced studies from Concordia University, and a doctor of philosophy degree from Loyola University of Chicago. She was a visiting scholar with the English faculty at Cambridge University, England, served a four-year term as president of Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy Alumni Board and currently is a board member of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park.