Brent Duckor, PhD

Professor, Teacher Education

Brent Duckor is a Professor in the Department of Teacher Education. He taught history, economics, and civics in the Senior Institute at Central Park East Secondary School in East Harlem, NYC. He later received his Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods and Evaluation at the University of California, Berkeley. Brent specializes in educational measurement, testing, and assessment. He has served on state and national boards providing educational assessment and measurement expertise to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the California Department of Education, and the College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium in Washington, D.C. His most recent scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Educational Measurement, Teachers College Record, Journal of Teacher Education, Educational Leadership, and Phi Delta Kappan. His book, Mastering Formative Assessment Moves: 7 High-Leverage Practices to Advance Student Learning (ASCD, 2017) with Dr. Carrie Holmberg, has been presented to audiences across the U.S. and abroad in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia.

Education

• Ph.D., Education, Quantitative Methods and Evaluation, U.C. Berkeley
• M.A., Education, Quantitative Methods and Evaluation, U.C. Berkeley
• M.A., International Affairs, Columbia University
• B.A., Politics, U.C. Santa Cruz

Recent Publications

• Duckor, B. & Holmberg, C. (2019/2020). 7 High-leverage formative assessment moves to support ELLs. Educational Leadership, 77(4), 46-52.
  
  
• Duckor, B. & Holmberg, C. (2019). Exploring how to model formative assessment trajectories of posing‐pausing‐probing practices: Toward a teacher learning progressions framework for the study of novice teachers. Journal of Educational Measurement. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/jedm.12239
  
  
• Duckor, B., & Holmberg, C. (June, 2017). Mastering formative assessment moves: 7 high-leverage practices to advance student learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
  
  
• Duckor, B., Draney, K., & Wilson, M. (2017). Assessing assessment literacy: An item response modeling approach for teacher educators. Pensamiento Educativo: Journal of Latin American Educational Research, 54(2), 1-25.
  
  
• Duckor, B., Holmberg, C., & Rossi-Becker, J. (2017). Making moves: Formative assessment in mathematics. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 22(6), 334-342.
  
  
• Duckor, B. (2017, April). Got grit? Maybe... Phi Delta Kappan, 98(7), 61-66.

Recent Presentations

• Duckor, B., & Stark, P. (2021, March). Evaluating the evaluation of teaching in higher education: What the data from student surveys do and do no not tell us. Invited talk at the BEAR Seminar, University of California, Berkeley, California.

• Duckor, B., Holmberg, C., Zhang, Y. (2020, March). Novice study of teacher learning progressions in posing, pausing and probing practices:A Multi-dimensional IRT analysis. Invited talk at the BEAR Seminar, University of California, Berkeley, California.

• Duckor, B. (2020, February). Supporting beginning teachers in formative assessment. Invited keynote speaker at the Formative Assessment for Student and Teachers State Collaborative for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), New Orleans, Louisiana.

• Hodi, A., & Duckor, B. (2019, October). The reading wars through the NRC (2001) looking glass: Reflections ontesting for reading and reading for testing. Invited talk at the BEAR Seminar, University of California, Berkeley, California.

• Duckor, B., Holmberg, C., & Wilson, M. (2019, September), On teaching learning progressions: One framework, two cases, many pathways for research. Poster session presentation at National Council of Measurement in Education’s 3rd Annual Special Conference on Classroom Assessment, Boulder, CO.
  
  
• Duckor, B., Holmberg, C., Patthoff, A., & Barnes, N. (2019, September). A teacher learning progressions approach to understanding and improving teachers’ formative assessment practice. In B. Duckor (Chair), A teacher learning progressions approach to understanding and improving teachers’ formative feedback with English learners. Symposium presented at National Council of Measurement in Education’s 3rd Annual Special Conference on Classroom Assessment, Boulder, CO.
  
  
• Duckor, B., Buckner, A., & Zhang, Y. (April, 2019). Understanding California superintendents’ beliefs about school climate data and its uses: A multidimensional modeling approach. Invited talk at the BEAR Seminar, University of California, Berkeley, California.

Noteworthy Grants and Awards

• Principal Investigator, Center for Closing the Opportunity Gaps (CCOG). Title of the Project: Building K-12 Educational Capacity for Youth in Foster Care and Youth Experiencing Homelessness in California. A Center for Collaborative Research and Excellence in Education (CCREE) Initiative at the Lurie College of Education. Sponsor: CSU Long Beach and the CSU Chancellor’s Office.

• Principal Investigator, Research Scholarship and Creativity Grant (RSCA). Title of the Project: Making formative feedback moves: High-leverage practices that make a difference. Sponsor: San José State University.

• Co-Principal Investigator, California Teacher Education Research and Improvement Network (CTERIN). Title of the Project: Understanding preservice teachers’ formative feedback practices in elementary, middle and high school classrooms in high needs contexts: A teacher learning progressions approach to building capacity for ELs in California. Sponsor: University of California.

• 2019-2020 SJSU Central RSCA Award for upcoming book on the role of formative feedback in advancing student learning in extraordinary times (Corwin)

Online Resources

• "Building Formative Assessment Capacity in Preservice Teachers"  presentations at Stanford Policy Analysis for California Education conference (YouTube video)

• "Episode 014: Drs. Brent Duckor & Carrie Holmberg, Formative Assessment" on Vrain Waves podcast

• Mastering Formative Assessment Moves: Making Real-Time Formative Assessment Moves That Make a Difference webinar hosted by ASCD

• "Assessment for Learning to Support Student Achivement" presentation at Lurie College of Education K-12 Online Teaching Academy (YouTube video)

• “How can Teachers, School Counselors, & Administrators support educational outcomes for students in foster care during extraordinary times?” webinar in collaboration with the CSU Center for Closing the Opportunity Gap (CCOG) (YouTube video)

Areas of Research Interest

• Classroom assessment
• Educational measurement
• Formative assessment
• Item response theory
• Rasch models
• Teacher learning progressions
• Validation studies

Recommended Reading

• Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment by the National Research Council
• Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing by American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
• The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools That Work by Linda Darling-Hammond

Personality Playlist

Listen to Brent's playlist below and access all of the personality playlists on our Lurie College of Education Spotify account