The cornerstone of assessment is localized in the face-to-face interactions in daily classroom instruction. Daily instruction involves understanding how learning inside disciplines should be organized to respond to the needs of particular learners. This chapter examines how opportunity to learn (OTL) can be structured in classrooms serving culturally diverse students in ways that (1) build on fundamental propositions in cognition; (2) focus on generative topics, concepts, and forms of problem solving within subject matters; and (3) scaffold forms of knowledge and ways of using language emerging from students' everyday experiences in families and communities. The basic argument is that reconceptualizing forms of assessment in the absence of reconceptualizing instruction will yield few results.

In this chapter, OTL means students have a right to rigorous instruction that:

1. 1) is organized in ways to build on and expand forms of prior knowledge they construct from their experiences outside school and across their years of schooling;

2. 2) provides them with models of expertise (e.g., models of more expert problem solving) and in-time feedback on the progress of their learning in ways that are usable and motivating; and

3. 3) focuses on powerful and generative topics, concepts, and problem-solving strategies within academic subject matters and across their years of schooling in ways that help them make sense of how their learning is useful in the world.

In order for these opportunities to take root, several important issues must be addressed. First, we must have good operational definitions and illustrations of learning within subject matters from a developmental perspective.