The Power of Assessment in the Classroom: Improving Decisions to Promote Learning

This textbook addresses the main assessment issues that teachers and educational institutions face in their daily work, while providing practical tools to support actions and decisions in this area. The critical issues observed in the assessment practices are made visible and specific guidelines and examples are given on how to carry out an effective and realistic classroom assessment within the school context.

The book reveals evaluation elements that future and practicing teachers need to know about and can benefit from, such as the alignment between curriculum, teaching and assessment, flexibility in the construction of instruments according to their purpose, effective feedback, rubrics to evaluate performance and the use of specification tables to make pedagogical decisions (beyond the construction of the instruments itself).

Translation from the Spanish language edition: El Poder de la Evaluación en el Aula. Mejores Decisiones para Promover Aprendizajes by Carla E.Förster Marín, (c) Ediciones UC 2018. Published by Ediciones UC. All Rights Reserved.

Carla E. Förster is professor at the Universidad de Talca, where she directs the Department of evaluation and quality of teaching. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on assessment of and for learning and participated in various teacher update courses. She investigates in assessment practices of teachers and in cognitive stimulation strategies at early ages. She has participated in commissions about teacher evaluation and initial teacher training.