Enhancing Student Opportunities for Scalable Success
Our mission is focused on promoting excellence, achieving equity, and improving learning. As part of our work to fulfill our WestEd mission, we provide assessment solutions designed to provide comprehensive measures of student understanding.
We help our partners and classroom, school, district, and state leaders to design and develop assessments that improve their understanding of student learning and achievement. By supporting leaders with a range of assessments–from formative to summative–and resulting data that are accurate, timely, and actionable, we help you build capacity to gain practical insights for informed decision making. Our work also supports continuous improvement of high-quality, informed teaching and learning systemwide by providing professional learning to help teachers and educators.
Key Outcomes of Our Work
We work with educators at all levels to expand their assessment knowledge and skill and embrace the full spectrum of assessment solutions. Our work to co-create innovative, valid assessments empowers teachers and learners and provides decision makers at all levels with feedback that is accurate, timely, and actionable.
- Promote positive learning cultures that enhance student opportunities for scalable success
- Increase knowledge of how assessment can help improve learning, teaching, and decision-making
- Expand opportunities for assessment of content not traditionally included in statewide assessment
- Apply data-driven implementation resources and independent evaluations of existing systems
- Deepen understanding about assessment implementation and interpretation of results
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Professional Learning
- Item Writing Workshops
Helping you make informed decisions about student learning, our virtual and/or in-person workshops teach you how to remove construct-irrelevant variables and craft clear, unbiased, appropriately rigorous, and standards-aligned items. - Assessment Literacy Workshops
Enhancing your assessment literacy expertise and helping educators understand and interpret scores, reports, and application of results. Read More > - Formative Insights
Leading transformative professional learning experiences in formative assessment with thousands of educators across the nation. Read More >
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Assessment Development, Research,
and Support - Assessment Design
Guiding all phases of the assessment design process through content specifications, test blueprints and test design, report design, item development, field testing, item analysis, and final forms construction. - Diagnostic Assessments
Ensuring your assessment system is structured to identify opportunities for in-depth, tailored instruction for every student. - Interim Assessments
Supporting your evidence-based teaching and learning throughout the year. - Formative Assessments
Supporting your development and implementation of formative assessment practices and tools to guide teaching and advance student agency and learning. - Summative Assessments
Promoting actionable, equity-focused, systemwide decision making and policy. - Assessment for Learning
Integrating formative assessment into everyday teaching and scaling positive outcomes across all levels of educational systems.
Our Work in Action
Formative assessment is a foundational part of an effective, holistic assessment program. Our approach encourages educators to think of formative assessment as an intentional and ongoing process embedded in daily teaching and learning. Leaders help implement and scale formative assessment practices, which need the appropriate supports and mindsets to promote positive learning outcomes.
Discover stories from our partners working to integrate formative assessment into everyday teaching and scale positive outcomes across all levels of educational systems.
Success Story
The item writing workshop from WestEd was fantastic. The instructors were helpful, friendly, and incredibly knowledgeable. I learned so much, not only about the correct way to write test questions but why it is important to structure items in a certain way.
Elizabeth Gutschmidt, 8th-grade Civics, Junior Youth in Government Advisor, Hidden Oaks Middle School (Florida)
