Implementation Indicators for

Formative Assessment

Learning Progressions
Implementation Principle A: Be clear about what’s mathematically important or significant in
your content (the concepts as well as the procedures) and how that content connects with other
mathematics and grows both within a unit and across units.

•• I use learning progressions to help inform my thinking about the mathematics content
I will teach.

Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

Implementation Principle B: Learning intentions help your students focus on what they should
be learning, and success criteria help them gauge the extent to which they are learning it.

•• My learning intentions make clear what the central focus of learning is for the lesson.
•• My learning intentions are about conceptual understanding.
•• For each learning intention, I include success criteria that focus on students demonstrating
their understanding through explanations, justifications, or other higher order thinking
activities, as well as those that focus on completing procedures correctly.
•• My success criteria focus on evidence that students can tangibly demonstrate.
•• My success criteria for a learning intention, taken collectively, provide enough evidence for
my students and me to be confident whether the learning intention has been reached.
•• I write learning intentions and success criteria whose language and math content is appro-
priately accessible to students.
•• The lesson activities provide experiences that enable students to make progress toward the
learning intention.

Implementation Principle C: You and your students both need access to the learning intention
and success criteria throughout the lesson.

•• I post the learning intentions and success criteria, or provide them on a handout, so that
my students and I can refer to them throughout the lesson.

Eliciting and Interpreting Evidence

Implementation Principle D: Students need opportunities and encouragement to articulate the
reasoning behind their work.

•• I provide opportunities for students to articulate the reasoning behind their work, as it
relates to the success criteria, for correct as well as incorrect work.

Retrieved from the companion website for Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies
for the Middle Grades by Susan Janssen Creighton, Cheryl Rose Tobey, Eric Karnowski, and Emily R. Fagan. Copyright  2015
by Corwin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com

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Implementation Principle E: Students need opportunities to provide evidence of each of the
success criteria.
•• When I plan my lessons, I think about the kind of evidence I need, with regard to my learn-
ing intention and success criteria.
•• My lessons include opportunities for students to provide evidence for each of the success
criteria.
Implementation Principle F: You need variety in how, when, and from whom you gather evi-
dence, to get a full picture of the class’s understanding, as a whole.
•• I collect evidence from either a few individuals, small groups, or the whole class, as appro-
priate at given points in a lesson
•• I collect evidence at key points throughout the lesson (not just at the end).
•• I collect evidence through student explanations, justifications, and so on, as well as through
their completion of procedures and problems.
Implementation Principle G: All gathering and interpretation of evidence needs to be in terms
of the success criteria.
•• I focus on the success criteria when I assess the current status of students’ progress.
•• I choose and carry out a responsive action during instruction, based on evidence I have
gathered during the lesson (e.g., use evidence to group students for a follow-up activity or
back up to provide more instruction).
•• I use evidence gathered from a lesson to plan a responsive action for the next day’s lesson.

Formative Feedback
Implementation Principle H: Formative feedback communicates to the student how he or she has
met, as well as not yet met, the success criteria, and it provides hints, cues, or models for next steps.
•• I provide feedback that includes what has been met (including what in the work indicates
this to me).
•• I provide feedback that includes what hasn’t been met (and why not, when appropriate).
•• I provide feedback that includes hints, cures, or models—not solutions or answers—to
help them meet the success criteria.
Implementation Principle I: Formative feedback should be focused and specific.
•• I focus my feedback on the skills and concepts described in the success criteria.
•• My feedback to students focuses on no more than one or two things at a time, so the stu-
dent can digest it and act on it.
Implementation Principle J: You need to prepare yourself to provide formative feedback and to
plan opportunities for students to respond to it.
•• During my lesson planning, in order to help me plan for providing feedback, I articulate
for myself what a student would say or do if he or she is meeting the success criteria.
•• I provide structures and time for students to act on feedback.
•• I follow-up with students to see if they acted on feedback (during the lesson or the next day).

Retrieved from the companion website for Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies
for the Middle Grades by Susan Janssen Creighton, Cheryl Rose Tobey, Eric Karnowski, and Emily R. Fagan. Copyright  2015
by Corwin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com
 3

Student Ownership and Involvement

Implementation Principle K: Students need to understand what the learning intention and suc-
cess criteria mean.
•• I discuss learning intentions and success criteria and make efforts to clarify the meaning
•• I share and discuss sample work against success criteria, as a way to build understanding
of the success criteria and what it looks like to meet them.
•• I refer to learning intention or success criteria (verbally or by pointing to a displayed ver-
sion), to refocus students or help them solidify their understanding.
•• I return to the learning intention and success criteria as part of lesson closure.
Implementation Principle L: Students need to use the success criteria to guide their self-
assessment and self-monitoring.
•• I provide opportunities for my students to self-assess according to the success criteria.
•• I provide structures and strategies to help students monitor their own learning.
•• My students refer to the success criteria to help focus and guide their work.
•• When giving feedback to a peer, my students refer to the learning intention or success criteria.
Implementation Principle M: Students need to learn how to provide and use evidence of their
mathematical reasoning and understanding in their self-assessment, and they need encourage-
ment to do so.
•• My students supply evidence of their work, with a comparison to the success criteria, in
their self-assessments.
•• My students ask questions that are focused on moving their learning forward (i.e. are more
specific than “I don’t get it,” and focus on a particular element of what they are learning).
Implementation Principle N: Students need to understand what feedback is, why it’s helpful,
and how they should use it.
•• I spend time in class teaching students what feedback is and how they will use it.
•• I build in opportunities to check that students understand the feedback they are receiving
(for example, summarizing it in their own words or telling me what they think they need
to do next).
•• My students use teacher and peer feedback to improve their work. They may do so with
prompting from me but also sometimes without prompting from me.
Implementation Principle O: Students need opportunities to provide and receive peer feedback,
as a way to learn to provide feedback to themselves about their own work.
•• I provide opportunities for students to practice giving peer feedback.
•• I help students connect the process of peer feedback with the process of self-assessment.
Implementation Principle P: Students understand a variety of ways to act on the results of their
self-monitoring to take the next steps to move their learning forward.
•• My students access resources (including peers, print resources, and the teacher) to help
them make progress toward meeting the success criteria. They may do so with prompting
from me but also sometimes without prompting from me.

Retrieved from the companion website for Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies
for the Middle Grades by Susan Janssen Creighton, Cheryl Rose Tobey, Eric Karnowski, and Emily R. Fagan. Copyright  2015
by Corwin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com
4

Classroom Environment
Implementation Principle Q: To support formative assessment practices, the social/cultural
environment of the class promotes intellectual safety and curiosity.

•• I establish clear guidelines for my students about everyone communicating their ideas
safely, and I use structures during the lesson to ensure this happens.
•• I provide appropriate think time after a question or comment before continuing.
•• I ask questions about students’ thinking, both for correct thinking as well as incorrect
thinking.

Implementation Principle R: To support formative assessment practices, the instructional envi-

ronment optimizes learning and encourages and makes visible students’ thinking.

•• When I plan lessons, I think about framing my math activities in a way that invites my
students to do some mathematical thinking and discussion.
•• I try to provide just enough support and information so that a student can do the majority
of the work themselves.

Implementation Principle S: To support formative assessment practices, the physical environ-

ment allows easy access to various resources.

•• I have a predictable location for making available my learning intentions and success cri-
teria, so students always know where to look.
•• I arrange my classroom to give student ready access to the formative assessment tools they
need as well as each other.

Retrieved from the companion website for Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies
for the Middle Grades by Susan Janssen Creighton, Cheryl Rose Tobey, Eric Karnowski, and Emily R. Fagan. Copyright  2015
by Corwin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com