Assessment - A Powerful Lever for Learning

Classroom assessment practices have been part of schooling for hundreds of years. There are, however, new findings about the nature of learning and about the roles that assessment can play in enhancing learning for all students. This essay provides a brief history of the changing role of assessment in schooling, describes three different purposes for assessment and foreshadows some implications that shifting to a more differentiated view of assessment can have for policy, practice and research.