As a Project Director at WestEd, Nancy Gerzon provides national leadership in formative assessment implementation, with a focus on implementing formative assessment at scale. She and her team guide widespread implementation that is grounded in learning science. They have developed models of technical assistance, professional learning, and classroom learning for all levels of the education system — students, teachers, school and district leaders, and state department teams.
Gerzon specializes in advancing teacher and leader learning models that foster significant changes in the student role, including the development of students’ metacognitive skills, and implementation of instructional routines that enable students to monitor and guide their own learning. She has been at the forefront of developing teacher-led learning in formative assessment, including developing models for formative assessment peer coaching, site-based communities of practice, teacher-led video study groups, and intensive blended digital professional learning.
Through the Comprehensive Center Network in 2005, Gerzon led the development of the first statewide implementation of formative assessment. Since that time, she has been at the forefront of providing state and regional technical assistance to elevate how student learning can be supported within assessment and accountability systems through such practices as formative and student-led assessment. Gerzon is currently leading WestEd’s role in the Assessment for Learning Project, a national network funded by the Gates and Hewlett Foundations to reframe policies and practices that promote the student role in assessment for learning.
She received a WestEd Strategic Investment grant to have an external evaluation team conduct a comprehensive analysis of WestEd’s formative assessment approach to ascertain the impact of that work on state-level policy and practice, district and school leadership knowledge, teacher formative assessment practice and student learning behaviors.