The authors propose the use of performance control charts as a useful tool for tracking student assessments that rely upon faculty administered exams and projects as well as assessing teacher performance. This quantitative, formative evaluation process can be integrated into the classroom during an actual semester and utilized as a means to…

Assessment serves many purposes in the elementary classroom. Formative assessment, often called assessment for learning, is characterized by its primary purpose--promoting learning. It takes place both formally and informally, is embedded in various stages of an instructional cycle, informs the teacher about appropriate next steps for instruction,…

New York's Cornell University spends millions of dollars and thousands of staff and volunteer hours to produce more than 1,400 events around the world each year. That's one event every six hours. Is it worth it? Do the 40,000 alumni, parents, and friends who attend feel closer to Cornell after these events? Do they disengage because Cornell didn't…

The overall aim of this article is to analyze the relationships between the roles of assessment in pedagogy, the interactions between curriculum assessment and pedagogy, and the study of pupils' progression in learning. It is argued that well-grounded evidence of pupils' progressions in learning is crucial to the work of teachers, so that a method…

Teacher evaluation has emerged as a major focus for reform at the highest levels of education policymaking, and for good reason. Most evaluations are based on scant evidence of actual effectiveness, produce inflated ratings, and provide teachers with little useful feedback. This paper offers policymakers and practitioners important "lessons…

This handbook is designed as a quick reference for first-year teachers who find themselves in an assessment driven environment with little experience to help make sense of the language, underlying philosophy, or organizational structure of the assessment system. The handbook begins with advice on developing and evaluating effective learning…

A distinction is made between program evaluation and project evaluation. The former is used to determine the effectiveness of a particular program or to compare programs. The latter is used in the initial stages of program development to define and monitor progress; to identify problems at an early stage; to record what is done and why; and to…

This paper illustrates how changing emphases and trends in education have led to a reformulation of notions of assessment and an awareness of the limitations of current measurement technology to deal with newer conceptualizations. Discussed are: 1) the antecedents of learning and the transactions which take place during the learning process, as…

Knowledge Management can be defined as a systematic process that creates, captures, shares, and analyzes knowledge in ways that directly improve performance. The goal of Knowledge Management is to improve the creation, dissemination, and exploitation of knowledge for the purpose of building competitive advantage. The proper use of knowledge…

A set of instruments are provided that were designed to assess student attitudes toward their learning experience in terms of course content, teaching methodology, instructor effectiveness, and the extent of learner involvement. Specifically, the six instruments assess: (1) quick general impressions; (2) student opinion of course content; (3)…

Value-added modeling (VAM) to estimate school and teacher effects is currently of considerable interest to researchers and policymakers. Recent reports suggest that VAM demonstrates the importance of teachers as a source of variance in student outcomes. Policymakers see VAM as a possible component of education reform through improved teacher…