Integrating Theory and Practice Through Instructional Assessment

This article describes a conceptual framework to integrate assessment and instruction. Based on constructivist perspectives on teaching and learning and the recent movement away from externally mandated testing as a guide for classroom activity, the framework highlights the importance of the teacher in the development of instructional assessment. Instructional assessment is viewed as part of a larger assessment system, with each component having different audiences and purposes. To be most effective, it is argued that the connections between assessment and instruction be bound more tightly. Teachers and students are asked to have more active roles, from the development of strategies to interpretation of results. Because this represents a very different model for assessment, new criteria for judging the validity of assessment strategies are outlined. Collaboration between the research and practitioner communities are suggested to develop practically grounded but theoretically strong methods of assessment.