The field of multilingual testing and assessment has grown rapidly in recent years due to the widespread need to integrate immigrant populations into mainstream education and to provide fair and equitable forms of assessment for all students. However, a continuing emphasis on bilingual students has created a significant gap in testing and…

This handbook brings together contributors from the United States, Australasia and Europe who use theoretical insights and empirical data to examine current practices as well as possible future directions of postgraduate education. A full range of postgraduate study options are explored, including PhD and professional doctorates, masters awards,…

Do you feel bogged down by endless administrative tasks? Do you wish you could focus more on what truly matters--learning? "Learnership" provides both insight and solutions for moving past the distractions and becoming a learning leader. Cathy Toll illustrates this transformational process through activities and focused "learning conversations."…

Learn everything you need to know to implement an integrated system of assessment and grading. The author details the specific benefits of formative assessment and explains how to design and interpret three different types of formative assessments, how to track student progress, and how to assign meaningful grades. Detailed examples bring each…

While there is consensus that institutions need to represent their educational effectiveness through documentation of student learning, the higher education community is divided between those who support national standardized tests to compare institutions' educational effectiveness, and those who believe that valid assessment of student…

This report discusses deep curriculum alignment and is designed to serve as a practical guide to an educational strategy that embraces the philosophy of "what is tested is what is taught." Chapter 1 describes misconceptions and misuses of rhetoric about public education, popular myths about tests, and the nature of curriculum alignment.…

As more and more early childhood programs implement response to intervention, the Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs) will be the tool of choice for fast, reliable, and ongoing progress monitoring. That's why every program needs this book, the only quick guide to conducting the popular IGDIs accurately and efficiently. Bringing…

When most people think of legal issues in sport, they think about negligence. However, most professionals will face a much broader range of issues. For instance, topics such as sexual harassment, corporal punishment, drug testing, transportation, and hazing are all of special importance today. Also anti-discrimination laws and the concepts…

Place- and community-based education--an approach to teaching and learning that starts with the local--addresses two critical gaps in the experience of many children now growing up in the United States: contact with the natural world and contact with community. It offers a way to extend young people's attention beyond the classroom to the world as…

Parents are concerned about their children's math learning. Teachers are concerned about math teaching. When parents see what children are bringing home under the new curriculum, it is clear that their children are not working on the same mathematics that parents remember from the time when they were in school. But, the problem goes beyond grades…

This book offers specific how-to advice to college faculty on every stage of the testing process, including planning the test and classifying objectives to be measured, ensuring the validity and reliability of the test, and grading in such a way as to arrive at fair grades based on relevant data. The book examines the strengths and weaknesses of…

This book describes how educators at Harrison Elementary School in Twin Falls, Idaho, used the Standardized Timed Curriculum (STC) to raise students' standardized test scores. The monograph, which is divided into eight chapters, opens with an overview of testing in schools, the growth of the test-preparation business, and the need for school…

Written by a social worker for social work students, this is a nuts and bolts guide to statistics that presents complex calculations and concepts in clear, easy-to-understand language. It includes numerous examples, data sets, and issues that students will encounter in social work practice. The first section introduces basic concepts and terms to…

This book is designed to help students become better test takers. It is intended for teachers, but would be helpful to parents who think that their children's test scores do not completely represent their knowledge or abilities. Test taking skills are those skills that, when used effectively, contribute to a "test-wise" individual who can use…

The purpose of this book is to make it possible for measurement specialists to solve practical testing problems through the use of item response theory (IRT). The topics, organization, and presentation are those used in a 4-week seminar held each summer for the past several years. The material is organized to facilitate understanding; all related…