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Damian Cooper is an independent education consultant who specializes in helping schools and school districts improve their instructional and assessment skills. In his varied career, Damian has been a secondary English, Special Education, and Drama teacher, a department head, a librarian, a school consultant and a curriculum developer. He has specialized in student assessment for more than twenty years. Damian served as assessment consultant to the School Division of Nelson Education where he worked on the development of assessment principles and strategies for a wide variety of K-12 resources. Prior to that appointment, he was Co-ordinator of Assessment and Evaluation for the Halton District School Board in Burlington, Ontario.
 Damian's expertise in assessment is sought across Canada, and internationally. He is in constant demand, both as a consultant and as a dynamic, entertaining speaker. His current work focuses on helping teachers and administrators connect curriculum, instruction, and assessment in ways that improve learning for all students. He is a frequent speaker at major conferences, including ASCD, STAO, and Solution Tree Events. In 1997, Damian was a member of the Canadian delegation invited by Nelson Mandela's government to establish a national curriculum and assessment framework for South Africa. Damian has worked in all Canadian provinces, many U.S. states, as well as in India, Greece, the U.K., and Thailand, helping educators improve their planning, instructional and assessment practices.
In Ontario, Damian has worked under contract to the Ministry of Education and the Assessment Training Consortium on a variety of projects. He was co-developer of the Ontario Assessment Instrument Pool (OAIP) for students in vocational programs, an initiative that introduced the concept of visual targets to educators in this province. As an original member of the Assessment Training Consortium, Damian helped to develop and deliver some of the earliest workshops involving data-based decision-making. After studying with Rick Stiggins and Grant Wiggins, Damian was instrumental in introducing qualitative and performance-based assessment to Ontario educators.
Damian served on the executive of the Association of Educational Researchers of Ontario (AERO) from 1997-2002.
Damian and his partner, Nanci Wakeman, co-authored both Getting Assessment Right: Language and Getting Assessment Right: Mathematics for Data-Based Directions.
Damian's recent resources, "Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Learning" (2007) and "Talk About Assessment: High School Strategies and Tools" (2010) have both become bestsellers. His latest book, "Redefining Fair: How to Plan, Assess and Grade for Excellence in Mixed Ability Classrooms" is published by Solution Tree.
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