International Portal of Teacher Education

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 25, Issue 5, pages 674-680 (July 2009).

By implementing a system of common formative assessments, the teachers at an American urban elementary school improved student achievement. Furthermore, using this system, the teachers facilitated their own professional development.
By aligning content standards with assessments and purposeful instruction, the teachers at this school developed a depth of knowledge about their content standards. The teachers also improved their ability to design assessments, learned to better link assessments with instruction and planned for intervention for students who continued to struggle with reading and writing.