This book recounts how a community of teachers, parents, and students took charge of a conventional school and created an unconventional one. It describes the challenges faced by the Bethlehem Lab School--from its inception in 1988 to the graduation of its first senior class. The school was conceived as a performance-based-assessment school, and…

As a result of research showing that students are more motivated when English teachers avoid grades and marks, this book focuses on ways to involve students in the assessment process. The book covers the following topics: learning and reflection, students controlling language, the purpose of assessment, assessing students' relationship to the…

Authentic assessment, as referred to in this book, encompasses meaningful tasks, positive interaction between teachers and students, methods that emphasize higher-order thinking skills, and strategies that allow students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning. Most important, authentic assessment means helping students to apply and…

This book discusses the anachronistic nature of the graded school structure and the practices that accompany it and proposes the alternative of a nongraded structure. The incompatibility of the graded system with present insights into child development are the the emphasis of the first chapter. Chapter 2 examines the effectiveness of nonpromotion…