Practicing What We Preach: Walkthroughs as Formative Assessments

Classroom walkthroughs have traditionally been used as supervisory tools, with principals as evaluators who monitor teacher performance and compliance with “best practices” checklists. Recent scholarship reconceptualizes walkthroughs as formative processes that can support learning for teachers, leaders, and students. This conceptual paper examines how formative classroom walkthroughs (FCWs), as articulated by Moss and Brookhart, align with the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) assessment principles and practices. The IB assessment framework emphasizes not only assessment for learning, but also the use of constructive feedback, positive backwash on teaching, fostering learner agency, and alignment with the learner profile. These features are integral to the IB’s philosophy, ensuring that assessment practices are learner-centered and support both student growth and instructional improvement. Moss and Brookhart’s FCW model puts these IB principles into practice through brief, targeted observations that focus on students’ learning targets, success criteria, demonstrations of understanding, formative feedback, and opportunities for self-assessment. By correlating IB assessment guiding principles with the components of FCWs, this paper proposes a conceptual alignment model and a correlation matrix. These demonstrate how walkthroughs can “practice what we preach” by serving as formative assessments rather than evaluative checklists and illustrate why Moss and Brookhart’s version of walkthroughs is more compatible with IB than traditional approaches. From a communities-of-practice perspective, this paper argues that FCWs should serve as ongoing, collaborative learning opportunities for IB stakeholders rather than isolated compliance checks.