This website is part of a four-year project (2010-2013) that invited teachers to tell the stories of learning unfolding in their classrooms.  These writings combine action research, assessment documentation, and personal reflection with a focus on thinking and learning. 

Assessment, even embedded assessment, is not foreign to schools.  However, assessment is general focused on students’ facility with the content that is directly taught.  But students learn much more than content in classrooms; they also learn what it means to learn and to think.  As educators, we tend to shy away from assessing these aspects, not because we don’t value them, but because they are messy, complex, and nuanced. 

The writings presented here attempt to wade into this problem space to show that it is possible to assess the development of students as thinkers and learners.  However, such assessments will not be simple pen and paper exercises but rather embedded, ongoing observations of students that emerge from a teacher’s direct focus on the thinking and learning behaviors of students.  These stories do not present simple, how-to steps for assessing, but instead offer portraits of the richness of learning and thinking development in context. We hope you will find them engaging and thought provoking, inviting you to take a fresh look at who your students are becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with you.