KU highlights book on real-time assessment

Assessment sounds like a testing problem. But in classrooms, it is really a decision problem. Teachers have to figure out what students know, what they can do, and what kind of evidence is actually worth collecting — all while the clock is running. That is the gap Bruce Frey is trying to close in a new book the University of Kansas highlighted this week: not whether assessment matters, but how teachers pick the right kind in real classrooms. (news.ku.edu) ### What is the actual news here? KU is pointing to Frey’s new book, *Classroom Assessment in the Real World*, as a guide for teachers who need something more useful than generic advice about “best practices.” Frey is a professor of educa(news.ku.edu)tool entirely. (news.ku.edu) ### Why does “fit” matter so much? Because classrooms are messy. Teachers do not work in a lab. They work inside state standards, district requirements, time limits, grading systems, and whatever happened five minutes before lunch. Frey’s point is that research matters, but classroom reality matters too. A professional teacher, in his framing, is someone who knows the available methods and can judge when each one makes sense. (news.ku.edu) ### What kinds of assessment is he talking about? The book is built around five common approaches: formative assessment, traditional paper-and-pencil methods, performance-based assessment, authentic assessment, and universal design of assessment. That mix matters because it pushes against the false choice between old-school tests and free-form projects. Frey is basically saying the real question is not “Which method is best?” It is “Best for what?” (news.ku.edu) ### So when is a quiz enough? When the goal is an objective check of what students know about a topic, a standard selected-response test can work perfectly well. If a teacher needs to know whether students remember vocabulary, identify a concept, or distinguish one idea from another, a quick paper-and-pencil measure can be efficient and clear. The problem starts when schools use that same tool to judge skills that are better shown than selected from four answer choices. (news.ku.edu) ### What needs a different tool? Anything where students have to perform, explain, build, revise, or apply. If the target is writing an argument, solving a multistep problem, conducting a lab task, or demonstrating a process, then a perfo(news.ku.edu)her interviews to show what those choices look like in practice. (news.ku.edu) ### Where does fairness come in? One of the book’s through-lines is that assessment should give all students a fair chance to show what they know. That is where universal design enters the picture. If a task measures reading load, language complexity, or format familiarity more than the intended learning goal, the teacher may end up assessing the wrong thing. A better-designed assessment lowers those accidental barriers without lowering the standard. (news.ku.edu) ### Why is KU making a point of this now? Because the pressure on teachers has not gone away. Schools still want usable evidence of learning, but teachers also need approaches that work under real constraints. Frey’s book, published by SAGE in 2026, lands in that exact space — practical, research-based, and built around choosing rather than obeying a single doctrine. (collegepublishing.sagepub.com) ### Bottom line The useful idea here is not that tests are bad or that projects are better. It is that assessment should match the learning goal, the classroom, and the evidence a teacher actually needs. That sounds obvious. But in practice, it is the difference between measuring learning and just generating scores. (news.ku.edu)CS6-ARTICLE-79ACS6-ARTICLE-79ACS6-ARTICLE-79ACS6-ARTICLE-79ACS6-ARTICLE-79ACS6))