Exhibits | Sponsorship
Advertising | Affiliates

Advancing Assessment in the Service of Learning
Wednesday, April 8, 3:45 pm to 5:15 pm
Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two - Room 404AB

Moderator: Eric Tucker (The Study Group)
Participants: Kadriye Ercikan (Educational Testing Service), Alina A. Von Davier (Duolingo), Edmund W. Gordon (Teachers College, Columbia University), James W. Pellegrino (University of Illinois at Chicago), Stephen G. Sireci (University of Massachusetts - Amherst)

This session explores the central thesis of the Handbook for Assessment in the Service of Learning series that assessment should not simply measure achievement but serve and improve learning. Building on the vision of Edmund W. Gordon, panelists will discuss how assessment can become a dynamic process that deepens understanding, guides instruction, and nurtures intellective competence. The session highlights the Handbook’s three volumes—Foundations, Reconceptualizations, and Examples—as a roadmap for redesigning assessment as a catalyst for growth and equitable learning opportunities. Presenters will explore how educators, researchers, and policymakers can collaborate to create learner-centered systems that use evidence to inform, inspire, and improve learning.

From Dynamic Pedagogy to Pedagogical Analysis
Thursday, April 9,  4:15 pm to 5:45 pm
Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two - Room 409AB

Participants: Eleanor Armour-Thomas (Queens College - CUNY), Eric Tucker (The Study Group), Paul A. Cobb (Vanderbilt University), Neal M. Kingston (University of Kansas), Gerunda B. Hughes (Howard University), Edmund W. Gordon (Teachers College, Columbia University), Hefer Bembenutty (Queens College - CUNY)

Principles of Dynamic Pedagogy reimagines the teaching-learning process as a reciprocal and adaptive system connecting curriculum, instruction, assessment, and learning. Grounded in contemporary research from cognitive science, educational psychology, measurement, and socio-cultural studies, this work highlights how educators can translate theory into an iterative practice that supports diverse learners and fosters engaged, self-regulated growth.

The session will introduce the Dynamic Pedagogy model, emphasizing metacognitive competencies that enable students to acquire, revisit, and consciously refine their understanding across a curriculum unit. Presenters will discuss how dynamic pedagogy informs real-time instructional decision-making, feedback, and assessment design—helping teachers create coherent, responsive classrooms where learning is continuously informed by evidence and reflection.

Ultimately, this framework equips educators and teacher educators with the tools to cultivate learning environments that are not only rigorous and equitable but also adaptive to students’ evolving cognitive and metacognitive needs.

Emancipatory Artificial Intelligence: Unforgetting AI Histories to Reimagine Liberatory Futures​​​​​​​
Friday, April 10, 1:45 pm to 3:15 pm
Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two - Room 403B

Chairs: Edmund W. Gordon (Teachers College, Columbia University), Malik Boykin (Brown University)
Discussants: Prudence L. Carter (Brown University), Ebony O. McGee (Johns Hopkins University)
Presenters: Thema Monroe-White (George Mason University), Odis Johnson (Johns Hopkins University), Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman (Teachers College, Columbia University), Thema Monroe-White (George Mason University)

This honorary presidential session convenes scholars at the intersection of educational equity and algorithmic justice to advance the 2026 AERA theme, “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures.” Extending Thema Monroe-White’s Emancipatory Data Science framework, the session situates algorithmic harms within centuries of racial classification, surveillance, and communicentric bias. Anchored by Edmund W. Gordon’s work on communicentric bias, equitable assessment, and supplementary education, speakers call for decentering dominant perspectives and designing assessments and AI systems that uplift marginalized learners. Panelists examine AI surveillance in schools, platform governance across educational ecosystems, and biases within psychometrics and generative language models. They imagine futures where computational methods, AI literacy, equity ethics, and supplementary supports enable data sovereignty and reimagine AI education for liberation and flourishing.

Finding the Future of Assessment in the Service of Learning​​​​​​​
Saturday, April 11, 3:45 pm to 5:15 pm
Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two - Room 409AB

Moderator: Stephen G. Sireci (University of Massachusetts - Amherst) ​​​​​​​
Participants: Eva L. Baker (University of California - Los Angeles), Howard T. Everson (City University of New York), Andrew Ho (Harvard University), Jennifer Randall (University of Michigan)

This symposium will provide an opportunity to review, critique, and focus the emerging movement in educational assessment that shifts perspectives on the role of testing from documenting the status or achievement of students to one that enriches and supports learning. For too long, accountability has functioned as the de facto North Star of assessment, using large-scale assessment as its method. Long overdue is an integrated redesign of assessment illuminating how learning happens and how it can be improved.

What if, instead, improving teaching and learning were the true north star of assessment? In that case, we will need not only to fundamentally redesign assessments to serve the aim of learning improvement but to reconsider and likely reformulate the core ideas underlying assessment quality. If the question is “How does this assessment help students learn?” We need to capture attributes of the learning situation as well, including personalization, complexity, and the role of learner experiences.

This reimagining of assessment “in the service of learning” set the stage for the groundbreaking three volume series entitled The Handbook for Assessment in the Service of Learning published in 2025 by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries https://openpublishing.library.umass.edu/ This Handbook is intended to function as both a guide and an invitation—by highlighting promising practices, acknowledging remaining challenges, and encouraging iterative improvement. One of the major areas identified for needed study is the question of assessment quality. This symposium will bring together assessment and measurement experts and scholars in learning and teaching to consider how notions of validity and the quality validity evidence should change in learner-centered, growth-enabling assessment systems. The focus of the panel discussions will be on how evidence-based insights can be obtained, and foster meaningful assessment practices at scale.