• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
SCALE Science at WestEd

SCALE Science at WestEd

  • About
    • Our Team
    • Partners
    • Contact Us
  • Curriculum
    • Stanford NGSS Integrated Curriculum: An Exploration of a Multidimensional World
    • Learning Through Performance
  • Assessment
    • SNAP Reports
    • SNAP Assessments
    • Assessment Courses
    • Design Tools
  • Professional Learning
    • IMPACT PL
    • SNAP courses
    • Webinars
  • Services
  • Research

IMPACT PL

“I had no idea assessment could be so joyful!”

– Professional Learning participant

The Implementing Practices of Ambitious Teaching for Complex Assessment Tasks (IMPACT) project aims to build foundational knowledge about teacher learning through the analysis of video clips of the implementation of performance assessments in science classrooms. IMPACT professional learning (PL) is designed to transform the culture of assessment such that assessments become an integral component of ambitious, asset-based science instruction. Through sustained PL situated in teachers’ practice, the IMPACT project supports teachers in using assessments to elicit, work with, and work on students’ ideas and assets to advance their sense-making in science classrooms.

The IMPACT Professional Learning (PL) Design

Teams of teachers and leaders engage in collaborative analysis and reflection using artifacts of student thinking and teacher practice from performance assessments to plan, implement, and reflect on their implementation of the assessments. The cycle happens three times over the course of a year, each focused on an instructionally-embedded performance assessment that the teachers are using to work on their asset-based assessment practice.

IMPACT PL in Action

IMPACT PL is designed to cultivate asset-based assessment practices and communities of practice that are sustained over time. Its flexible design facilitates its integration into district and state capacity-building activities for science teachers, instructional coaches, and school and district leaders across the country.

Contact us to discuss ways we can partner to support asset-based assessment and instruction in your context!

PL Design & Toolkit

The IMPACT PL model is designed to be flexibly adapted into a variety of contexts. Download and modify toolkit materials to reflect your contexts’ needs and aspirations, or work with our team to make adaptations.

Click here to see IMPACT PL design materials and tools

 

Project Research

IMPACT is a design-based research project that draws on three primary theoretical frameworks to guide how we use the implementation of performance assessments to advance and study teachers’ learning. IMPACT Publications & Presentations


IMPACT (IMplementing Practices of Ambitious teaching for Complex assessment Tasks) is a multi-institutional collaboration across the RAND Corporation, WestEd, Northwestern University, and the University of Pittsburgh that brings together learning scientists, assessment experts, and practitioners to support teaching and learning through asset-based assessment.

Project materials are free to use! Please cite any materials you use with the suggested citations at the bottom of documents — or you can cite material directly from the website using: IMPACT Project (2023). [Title of page that you got the material from]. IMPACT Project website. [url of the page]

Award #2319933. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.


 

The Team

The IMPACT PL program is a multi-institutional collaboration among learning scientists, assessment experts, and practitioners. We are an evolving group of program directors, team members, and advisors, and we are continually seeking new collaborations to broaden and expand how we support teaching and learning through asset-based instructional and assessment practices. Contact us to explore a partnership with our team!

 

Program Directors

Miray Tekkumru-Kisa, RAND

Miray Tekkumru-Kisa is a policy researcher at RAND and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.. Two interrelated foci of Tekkumru-Kisa’s research are understanding and supporting professional learning and measuring and improving instructional quality for ambitious and equitable teaching in science. Her research efforts involve working in partnership with stakeholders across layers of the education system (e.g., schools, districts, and states) for building the capacity for continuous improvement.

Jill Wertheim, SCALE Science at WestEd

Jill Wertheim’s work focuses on building school, district, and statewide capacity to advance all students’ science learning through through the use of student-centered, asset-based assessment practices. These development and capacity-building activities activities build on work initially conducted in her role as the Director of Science at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE), where Dr. Wertheim led the development of exemplar performance assessments, rubrics, development tools, and professional learning as part of the Stanford NGSS Assessment Project (SNAP).

Jennifer Richards, Northwestern University

Jennifer Richards is a Research Assistant Professor in the Learning Sciences, where her research focuses on two interconnected strands primarily within the context of science education. She co-designs and studies ways of cultivating responsive learning environments for both students and educators — spaces within K-12 settings that take seriously learners’ ideas, experiences, motivations, and directions. Building on this asset-based framing, Dr. Richards also seeks to illuminate resources existing within educators’ current thinking and practice that can contribute to ambitious, responsive forms of teaching and assessment. She intentionally engages in this work in partnership with practicing teachers, school district partners, and students.

Liz Richey, University of Pittsburgh

Liz Richey conducts learning sciences research, and has particular interests in educational technology, motivation, example-based learning, explanation, collaboration, and belonging. Through laboratory experiments and classroom studies, she examines cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational factors that influence math and science learning from middle school through college.

Project Team

Lauren Stoll, SCALE Science at WestEd

Atakan Keskin, RAND

Rebecca Wolf, RAND

Past Team Members

Olivia Masse, Northwestern University

Kevin Cherbow, BSCS

Özlem Akçil Okan, Florida State University

Ryan Coker, Florida State University


Project Advisors

Jonathan Osborne, Stanford University

Miriam Sherin, Northwestern University

Tina Cheuk, Calpoly, San Luis Obispo

Erin Furtak, University of Colorado, Boulder

Timothy Nokes-Malach, University of Pittsburgh

Mark Windschitl, University of Washington

Primary Sidebar

  • Professional Learning

    • IMPACT PL
    • SNAP courses
    • Webinars

Footer

SCALE Science at WestEd
  • About
    • Our Team
    • Partners
    • Contact Us
  • Curriculum
    • Stanford NGSS Integrated Curriculum: An Exploration of a Multidimensional World
    • Learning Through Performance
  • Assessment
    • SNAP Reports
    • SNAP Assessments
    • Assessment Courses
    • Design Tools
  • Professional Learning
    • IMPACT PL
    • SNAP courses
    • Webinars
  • Services
  • Research
Contact Us

Copyright © 2025 WestEd

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Accessibility
  • Visit WestEd.org