WestEd is pleased to announce Formative Insights has been selected by HundrED, in partnership with the Jacobs Foundation, as one of the 14 top innovations leading advancements in formative assessment. HundrED is a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering, researching, and sharing K–12 education innovations and the Jacobs Foundation facilitates innovation for children and youth around the world.

The recognition is featured in a new report, Formative Assessment: Improving Learning for Every Child Spotlight, which highlights the most impactful formative assessment solutions in education from around the world. More than 100 innovators from 42 countries participated in the rigorous submission and evaluation process. Formative Insights is one of only three solutions in the United States to be identified as one of the top innovations.

As a Project Director of Formative Insights at WestEd, Nancy Gerzon provides national leadership in formative assessment implementation, focusing on implementing formative assessment at scale in the United States. She leads the nationwide development of formative assessment solutions designed to re-energize and empower teachers and school leaders. Key to her team’s motivation and success, she says, is listening and responding to teacher and student feedback and providing knowledge and tools that improve learning culture, increase student motivation, strengthen academic identities, and enhance student agency.

“We often talk about the value of formative assessment related to its impact on students,” Gerzon says. “WestEd’s team came into this work nearly 20 years ago to support the shift in the student role, so that students learn to observe and use evidence of their learning to help move their own (and their peers’) learning forward through new models of discourse, reflection, and feedback.”

Formative Insights helps states, districts, and schools introduce, implement, and scale formative assessment. The team provides professional learning for teachers, leaders, and policymakers, focusing on how formative assessment strengthens students’ role in learning and advances equity.

Profiles and insights from the selected innovators are featured in the new report, Formative Assessment: Improving Learning for Every Child. 

For additional information, read HundrED’s official press release. 

Find out more about WestEd’s Formative Insights, including their guiding principles for empowering students, nurturing collaborative classrooms, building positive learner identities, and developing leaders to build systems that sustain deep learning.