Many argue that the conventional high school transcript has become irrelevant to today's best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. With more and more school leaders turning to alternate, competency-based approaches for learning, crediting and transcripts can follow suit by drawing on badging, micro-crediting, digital portfolios of…

This paper concentrates on the public and formal processes of reporting achievement. The topic is significant because employers, managers and graduate schools all use warrants when making selection and governance decisions. Should those warrants turn out to have, as we argue, local meanings, then selection and governance practices, amongst others,…

An approach to improving classroom instruction is offered that advances a longitudinal, cyclical presentation of instruction, its evaluation, and revision over time. This approach is distinguished by student self-graphing of student performances, a teacher's log of changes made in instruction, and a class graph kept by the teacher or students. The…

Two years of pilot projects are described that attempt to measure special education pupils' progress without being overly global or overly restrictive. It is explained that to be helpful to students, parents, teachers, and other staff, an evaluation system should provide connections between individualized education programs (IEPs), instructional…

Describes the development of an evaluation system in which the instructor marks statements describing a student's work in a course. The statements are stored in a computer which produces the list on request. Implemented for two years, the system is considered more precise than letter grades and easier than evaluative paragraphs. (JT)

Should portfolios replace the traditional report card or be used in conjunction with other evaluative methods? A study assessed the value of portfolios as an evaluation tool and the popularity of their use. Research supports the use of portfolios as a viable means of assessment, yet studies are inconclusive and do not support portfolios as a…

Admissions committees are becoming more sensitive to nongrade variables in the selection process of professional college applicants. One method of providing useful and revealing information is shown to be through a structured personal interview, such as the "SRI Dentist Perceiver," developed by Selection Research, Inc., in Lincoln,…

This book provides a guide for early childhood educators in implementing and using portfolio assessment to measure children's learning. Chapter 1 focuses on, "How Young Children Learn." It explains that children are active learners who learn by doing things repeatedly, by making mistakes, and by being exposed to varying approaches,…

This book establishes a framework that can be used to evaluate software for tracking and analyzing student records. First, it examines the characteristics the user should look for in a student-records management software package. Users should be aware of the dangers and costs of replacing a system or integrating new software into an existing…

In the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District (California), course and basic skills prerequisites have been established for all courses. Students with no record of completing these prerequisites cannot enroll unless they have been assessed by a counselor, have had their prerequisites verified in alternate ways, and have been granted…

In the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District, course and basic skills prerequisites have been established for all courses. Students who do not have a record of having completed these prerequisites cannot enroll unless they have been assessed by a counselor, have had their prerequisites verified in alternate ways, and have been granted…

The North Warwickshire (England) College of Technology and Art created student profiles of students enrolled in a precaring course, a one-year course conceived as an introduction to work in the caring field for young people of low academic achievement. It was decided that a master profile should be created to cover all low-level courses across the…

In the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District, course and basic skills prerequisites have been established for all courses. Students with no record of completing these prerequisites cannot enroll unless they have been assessed by a counselor, have had their prerequisites verified in alternate ways, and have been granted override status for…

Public distrust in schools should not be attributed to poorer schools or less able students; it exists because we have a different kind of parent and a different world ahead. Parents of today's children were trained not to accept the status quo, but to question; furthermore, underlying parents' concern about the schools is a fear that their…

This is the introduction and summary of a series of six papers discussing major issues about student assessment for the University of Wisconsin Extended Degree Program, a program designed to give academic credit for college level learning derived from experiences outside the scope of formal classes. A distinction is made between prior learning,…