In today's educational world, it is crucial for language teachers to continuously evolve in order to best serve language learners. Further study on the best practices and challenges in the language classroom is crucial to ensure instructors continue to grow as educators. The "Handbook of Research on Language Teacher Identity" addresses…

Discusses the use of student-generated performance rubrics as a substitute for traditional teacher-generated three-part performance objectives. Gives three examples. (MKR)

Speaking across the curriculum programs are a readily accessible venue for the assessment of oral communication competence and in some instances are already being used for such purposes. While so far the implementation of simple holistic judgments for quality assurance purposes has emerged as one practical procedure, further exploration should…

During fall semester of their senior year, preservice elementary teachers evaluated their mastery of mathematics and teaching methods and wrote an autobiography of their school mathematics experiences. This process helped the prospective teachers gain insight into their own strengths and weaknesses and improved rapport with the methods course…

Discusses using two alternative assessment methods, journals and portfolios, with preservice teachers in an elementary mathematics methods course. (Contains 13 references.) (ASK)

The current preference for alternative assessment has been partly stimulated by recent evidence on learning which points to the importance of students' active engagement in the learning process. While alternative assessment may well fulfill the aims of formative assessment, its value in the summative assessment required in higher education is more…

These four issues of the English Leadership Quarterly represent those published during 1992. Articles in number 1 deal with testing assessing, and measuring student performance, and include: "Real Evaluation: Portfolios as an Effective Alternative to Standardized Testing" (Kate Kiefer); "No More Objective Tests, Ever" (Carol…

This collection of 10 essays argues that portfolios in the writing classroom are worth exploring and that such exploration opens up new opportunities: new ways to learn to write, to think about teaching writing, to understand students, teachers, and curricula, and to describe and report on what is found. The collection makes this argument by…

One way to help teachers know how to give better assistance to students is to have students analyze their papers in a letter or memo attached to their essays. In one class, such memos are called "Learning from your own writing process," and typically describe: (1) what the student was trying to do; (2) what seemed to work or not work in…

Demonstrates how students' writings can be used to inform instruction and serve as the foundation for a teacher's portfolio on improving classroom practice. (MKR)

Discusses the use of assessment portfolios and the process of creating a portfolio from the perspective of a teacher educator using portfolios in a methods course and that of a preservice teacher enrolled in the course. (MKR)

The use of portfolio creation with teacher education students is one way to enact the spirit and practices associated with the "true testing" movement. True testing advocates relevant work, in-context work, metacognitive work, self-evaluation, peer-collaborations, work commitment, self-directedness, successive work drafts, and work…

Assessing literacy strategies through collected works, reading logs, journal writings, other language activities, and informal testing, this book provides preservice teachers a firm grounding in the theory of literacy portfolios as part of authentic assessment strategies and provides guidelines of creating and using literacy portfolios…

The result of an investigation into the grading writing by the National Council of Teachers of English Committee on Alternatives to Grading Student Writing, this collection of essays offers the writing teacher several innovative and interesting options. Following an introduction by the editor (chair of the Committee), in which he delineates the…

Maintains that alternative assessment puts a student in the role of a teacher preparing for a lesson. Asserts that students need different types of resources to foster student curiosity, provide direction, and support exploration. Provides a nine-item annotated bibliography of books, book series, and graphic collections. (CFR)