Essential Assessment is grounded in evidence-based research, ensuring that educators and students benefit from proven strategies to enhance learning outcomes. The platform draws on the work of renowned educational researchers such as Vygotsky (1934), Rosenshine (2012), Black and Wiliam (1998), and others.
This article explores how Essential Assessment integrates the following pedagogical frameworks into its online and printable resources to support effective teaching, assessment, and learning. Essential Assessment empowers educators to cater to each student’s unique learning needs, fostering a sense of inclusivity and personalisation.
- Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction (2012)
- Black and Wiliam’s Formative Assessment and Feedback (1998)
- Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset (2006)
- Guy Claxton’s Learning Powers (2022)
- Michael Fullan’s Change Leadership (2011)
- Patrick Griffin’s Assessment for Teaching: Professional Learning Cycle (2014)
- Lorraine Hammond’s Explicit Instruction and Direct Instruction (2021)
- John Hattie’s High-Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS, 2016)
- Sir Ken Robinson’s Focus on Creativity and Personalised Learning (2006)
- Helen Scarborough’s Focus on Early Intervention and Literacy Development (2001)
- Lyn Sharratt’s Clarity (2019)
- Tom Sherrington’s Work (2017) on Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction
- Nathaniel Swain’s Evidence-Based Literacy Practices (2020)
- Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Scaffolding (1934)
- Zimmerman and Schunk’s Self-Regulated Learning (1989)
1. Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction (2012)
Essential Assessment closely follows Rosenshine’s principles by embedding key ideas into the platform:
- Daily Review: Teachers can review previously taught material through formative checks embedded in My Numeracy and My Literacy, helping to solidify learning.
- Small Steps (Scaffolded Learning): Assessments are broken into manageable chunks, preventing cognitive overload and ensuring regular checks for understanding.
- Frequent Practice: The platform supports repeated practice through assessments and learning apps, reinforcing learning through multiple opportunities.
- Guided Practice: Differentiated features allow teachers to guide students through content aligned with their ZPD, with formative assessments providing checkpoints and immediate feedback.
2. Black and Wiliam’s Formative Assessment and Feedback (1998)
Black and Wiliam stress the importance of formative assessment and timely feedback for promoting growth. Essential Assessment provides tools that support reflection and improvement through ongoing formative assessments (My Numeracy and My Literacy), offering immediate feedback to help teachers adjust instruction and students monitor their progress. Features like individual learning goals, instant automated feedback from learning apps, and Flexi-assessments enable continuous formative check-ins, ensuring personalised learning paths and aligning with Black and Wiliam’s feedback loop model.
3. Guy Claxton’s Learning Powers (2022)
Claxton’s framework emphasises the development of assessment-capable learners who possess the following qualities:
- Emotional Resilience: The platform promotes a growth mindset, allowing learners to acknowledge their accomplishments and build emotional resilience.
- Cognitive Resourcefulness: Essential Assessment supports resourcefulness through personalised learning plans and adaptable assessments.
- Social Relationships: Teachers can use assessment data to create tasks focusing on group work, promoting teamwork and peer interaction.
- Strategic Reflection: The platform offers feedback tools and metacognitive prompts, such as the sketchpad and reflection tool, to encourage strategic reflection and adjustments to learning strategies.
4. Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset (2006)
Dweck’s research on growth mindset emphasises that learners’ intelligence and abilities can be developed over time with effort. Essential Assessment embraces this philosophy by framing learning goals as ‘I can’ statements, encouraging students to view challenges as growth opportunities. During assessments, students are prompted to use the ‘I don’t know yet’ mindset when encountering difficulties, reinforcing that learning is a continuous process rather than a fixed outcome. Essential Assessment fosters a growth mindset by providing opportunities for students to reflect on their learning, set goals, and receive feedback, all of which are key elements of Dweck’s research. This approach fosters resilience and encourages students to persist through challenges.
5. Michael Fullan’s Change Leadership (2011)
Michael Fullan’s change leadership model emphasises system-wide improvement, collaboration, and data-led decision-making to enhance learning outcomes. Essential Assessment aligns with these principles by providing real-time, curriculum-aligned data that fosters collaboration among educators and school leaders. The platform supports collective efficacy and capacity building by enabling teams to analyse student data, plan interventions, and track progress, promoting continuous improvement. This data-informed approach is central to sustainable change and reflects Fullan’s vision for effective educational leadership.
6. Patrick Griffin’s Assessment for Teaching: Professional Learning Cycle (2014)
Griffin’s assessment cycle emphasises a simple, data-informed approach to teaching. Essential Assessment follows this process, providing support in the following areas:
- Pre-assessment: Essential Assessment offers curriculum-aligned online and printable pre-assessments to identify students’ existing knowledge and skills before new learning. Assessing prior knowledge enables teachers to tailor instruction based on each student’s starting point, ensuring that new content is appropriately scaffolded.
- Instruction: Real-time, curriculum-aligned data informs targeted instruction for whole classes, small groups, or individuals, ensuring that teaching aligns with student needs.
- Formative Check-ins: Ongoing formative assessments continuously track student progress, providing immediate feedback to students and teachers and allowing for timely instructional adjustments.
- Post-assessment: After targeted instruction, post-assessments measure student growth and the effectiveness of teaching strategies. The data also informs the development of new learning goals, helping guide the next learning phase.
- Evaluation: Tools such as View Class Results and Strand Overview enable teachers to evaluate the impact of their teaching and identify areas where students have shown growth or need further support.
- Next Steps: Data tools such as the Data Wall and whole school analysis guide future instruction, supporting continuous improvement and the development of ongoing learning strategies.
7. Lorraine Hammond’s Explicit Instruction and Direct Instruction (2021)
Hammond’s work (2021) on explicit and direct instruction focuses on structured, teacher-led lessons that ensure students build foundational knowledge before progressing to more complex tasks. Essential Assessment aligns with Hammond’s research by providing real-time data that supports explicit instruction. The platform allows teachers to identify specific content areas where students require additional scaffolding, enabling them to deliver clear, systematic instruction that builds mastery. Hammond’s emphasis on frequent practice and immediate feedback is found in Essential Assessment’s tools, which provide continuous formative assessments, allowing teachers to monitor progress and adjust instruction in real-time. This approach ensures that learning is sequenced and students are well-supported on each educational journey, mirroring Hammond’s focus on clear, explicit instruction to improve student outcomes.
8. John Hattie’s High-Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS, 2016)
Essential Assessment incorporates John Hattie’s teaching strategies in the following ways:
- Setting Goals: Essential Assessment offers individualised learning goals based on curriculum-aligned outcomes and tailored to students’ needs after each assessment.
- Explicit Teaching: Teachers can access real-time data highlighting specific content areas requiring focused instruction for the entire class or small groups.
- Worked Examples: The platform provides sample texts to demonstrate worked examples, supporting students and teachers.
- Feedback and Metacognitive Strategies: Formative assessments deliver immediate feedback that aligns with individual student goals. Features like the Student Sketchpad allow learners to showcase their thought processes, enabling teachers to provide personalised feedback.
9. Sir Ken Robinson’s Focus on Creativity and Personalised Learning (2006)
Sir Ken Robinson (2006) advocated for education systems to nurture creativity and individual learning styles, enabling students to thrive by developing their unique talents. Essential Assessment supports this vision by providing personalised learning pathways and real-time, curriculum-aligned data to identify each student’s strengths and challenges. This allows educators to create tailored, flexible learning experiences beyond traditional test metrics. By combining data-driven insights with personalised approaches, Essential Assessment helps cultivate creativity, academic growth, and a holistic learning environment, reflecting Robinson’s philosophy of unlocking every student’s potential.
10. Helen Scarborough’s Focus on Early Intervention and Literacy Development (2001)
Helen Scarborough’s work (2001) emphasises the critical role of early intervention and effective literacy development in ensuring long-term academic success. Essential Assessment aligns with Scarborough’s focus by providing early and continuous assessment tools, such as My Literacy, which help educators identify literacy challenges from the earliest stages. Scarborough’s research underscores the importance of assessing critical literacy skills early, enabling timely interventions that address foundational gaps before they become entrenched. Essential Assessment supports this by offering curriculum-aligned assessments that allow teachers to pinpoint specific areas of need and tailor instruction to meet those needs. This approach, rooted in continuous data collection and targeted teaching, reflects Scarborough’s vision of early, effective interventions that promote strong literacy outcomes and long-term student success.
11. Lyn Sharratt’s Clarity (2019)
Lyn Sharratt’s Clarity framework emphasises the importance of data-informed decision-making and clear, focused teaching practices to enhance student learning outcomes. Essential Assessment aligns with Sharratt’s principles by providing real-time, curriculum-aligned data that allows teachers to make informed instructional decisions. The platform helps educators focus clearly on student progress by offering transparent and accessible assessment data, identifying learning needs, setting precise learning goals, and monitoring progress. Additionally, Sharratt highlights the value of collaborative inquiry. Essential Assessment supports this through its comprehensive data tools that enable teachers to work together to reflect on student outcomes and adjust teaching strategies accordingly. This emphasis on clarity of purpose, data, and pedagogy ensures Essential Assessment supports student growth in line with Sharratt’s evidence-based practices.
12. Tom Sherrington’s Work (2017) on Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction
Tom Sherrington’s work (2017) highlights the importance of explicit teaching, retrieval practice, and metacognition in enhancing student learning. Essential Assessment aligns with these principles by providing tools that support structured, data-informed instruction, where teachers can deliver content in manageable steps and use frequent checks for understanding. Sherrington also advocates for developing metacognitive strategies, which Essential Assessment encourages through reflection tools that prompt students to assess their learning and attitudes. This approach fosters deeper student engagement and continuous improvement and aligns with Sherrington’s evidence-based teaching practices.
13. Nathaniel Swain’s Evidence-Based Literacy Practices (2020)
Nathaniel Swain (2020) highlights the importance of evidence-based literacy practices and explicit, systematic instruction to improve student outcomes. Essential Assessment aligns with this approach by offering tools like My Literacy, which help teachers assess reading and writing skills, guide tailored instruction, and monitor progress through formative assessments. These tools support Swain’s emphasis on frequent checks for understanding and scaffolded learning, enabling educators to close learning gaps and enhance literacy outcomes with data-driven, structured strategies.
14. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Scaffolding (1934)
Vygotsky’s theory emphasises the importance of providing learners with tasks beyond their current level of mastery but achievable with guidance (scaffolding). Essential Assessment applies this by dynamically adjusting assessments to a student’s current capabilities, finding their ZPD within a single session. Teachers can scaffold instruction using the detailed data provided by the platform, meeting each student’s needs. Formative assessments, such as My Numeracy and My Literacy, offer continuous checkpoints to reflect teaching impact and ensure progression within the student’s ZPD.
15. Zimmerman and Schunk’s Self-Regulated Learning (1989)
Zimmerman and Schunk’s work emphasises the role of self-regulation in student achievement. Self-reflection, an important component of self-regulated learning, helps students assess their effort, strategy use, and motivation. The reflection tool in Essential Assessment aligns with this research by encouraging students to think critically about their attitudes toward learning and how they can improve their approach to the subject.
Incorporating the most recent evidence-based educational research, Essential Assessment offers a comprehensive platform for teachers to implement best practices and create a student-centred, personalised learning environment.
Essential Assessment integrates key research findings to track and measure student progress, improve instructional methods, and guide students toward reaching their full potential through real-time data, formative assessment, feedback loops, and personalised learning paths.
References
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. King’s College London School of Education.
Claxton, G. (2022). The learning power approach: Teaching learners to teach themselves. Crown House Publishing.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Fullan, M. (2011). Change leader: Learning to do what matters most. Jossey-Bass.
Griffin, P. (2014). Assessment for teaching. Cambridge University Press.
Hammond, L. (2021). Explicit instruction and direct instruction: Effective teaching strategies. Australian Society for Evidence-Based Teaching.
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Robinson, K. (2006). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Capstone Publishing.
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-39.
Scarborough, H. S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 97-110). Guilford Press.
Sharratt, L. (2019). Clarity: What matters most in learning, teaching, and leading. Corwin Press.
Sherrington, T. (2017). The learning rainforest: Great teaching in real classrooms. John Catt Educational.
Swain, N. (2020). Effective literacy instruction: Evidence-based approaches to teaching reading and writing. Learning Difficulties Australia Bulletin.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1934). Thought and language. MIT Press.
Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (1989). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theory, research, and practice. Springer-Verlag.
