Planning effective instruction for a classroom full of learners demands that the educator know what works and more importantly what works better for the group of people residing in the educator's classroom today. This action research study tested the efficacy of using the full compliment of assessments included in the curriculum adoption at the researchers school and that of guided note taking. Each strategy was implemented in its own separate unit of a pre-algebra class. The researcher used student growth, which was determined by the difference observed between a student's pre-test percentage score and their final unit test percentage score, as the metric by which to evaluate each strategies efficacy. Measurable growth was observed with both strategies. The All Assessments strategy showed greater and more consistent growth among learners than that which was observed during the Notes strategy. These findings indicate that more research is needed on the effectiveness of using assessments for learning and a need for further study to evaluate the efficacy of guided note taking. Findings in this study should be considered as illuminating but not conclusive as the sample used is not generalizable. (Contains 5 figures.)