This article gives a brief overview of the structure and purposes of rubrics; reviews the benefits of using rubrics as both teaching and grading tools; warns against approaches that limit the effectiveness of rubrics; and urges instructors to take simple steps toward ensuring the validity, reliability, and fairness of their rubrics. Tips for using…

Assessment can be conducted in various ways in school, and has also different purposes. In this paper, the focus is on pupil assessment during project work. The article touches on the aim of assessment that has ranking and certificating purposes, but its main focus is on assessment as a learning device. Dialogues from the classroom are used as…

There are a variety of techniques that lecturers can use to get feedback on their teaching--for example, module feedback and coursework results. However, a question arises about how reliable and valid are the content that goes into these quality assurance metrics. The aim of this article is to present a new approach for collecting and analysing…

Using video recordings of lessons and interviews with teachers, this article explores the way in which teachers enact Assessment for Learning (AfL) practices in their classrooms. Starting with the hypothesis that AfL is built on an underlying pedagogic principle that foregrounds the promotion of pupil autonomy, we analyse the ways in which…

Understanding and implementing effective classroom assessments are skills that are essential to increasing student achievement. Unfortunately, many teachers have had little training in assessment strategies in either graduate or undergraduate programs. Administrators, therefore, must find innovative ways to help their teachers think like assessors…

Finding time for teams to work in schools is both a necessity and a responsibility. If educators are sincere about efforts to improve student learning, leaders must take responsibility for providing team time for teachers and a structure in which they are able to work collaboratively. The Papillion-La Vista (Nebraska) Public Schools took to heart…

Private conferences with students allow the composition teacher to give more feedback, increase teacher concentration and pace, demystify the evaluation process, and facilitate teacher/student interaction. (DD)

Describes a feedback method for teaching interviewing skills that requires dual evaluation of a student's performance by both the student interviewer and the interviewee. Illustrates benefits of this method with an analysis of 139 paired assessments of students' information-gathering skills in a "career interview" assignment. (PD)

Describes a program evaluation model that was developed over three semesters of teaching an introductory graduate-level course in program evaluation. The framework uses a systems approach that emphasizes its sequenced methodology and the significant of monitoring work through feedback loops in an ongoing revision process. (Author/SLD)

This article discusses how math teachers at San Marcos High School turned to an online curriculum and in-class assessments to increase student achievement. Setting aside their 7-year-old textbooks, teachers filled the void largely with an online math curriculum, called Agile Mind, that comes equipped with an array of assessment tools. The idea was…

Describes a technique in which students deliver their speeches three times, each time to a different third of the class. Helps beginning speech students develop self-confidence and communication effectiveness more rapidly and thoroughly than is usually achieved in standard classroom speaking formats. (PD)

Teachers who communicate a clear intent to improve students' motor performance present tasks holistically, concretely, and briefly. Movement skills in a physical education lesson are developed primarily by presenting and working with tasks while students are actually moving. (JN)

Extensive practice in evaluation through each writing stage, from prewriting to final draft, helps students to sharpen their skills as critics of others' writing, guides them as they revise their compositions, and demonstrates to them that evaluating their writing is essentially their job and not their teacher's. (RL)

Investigation indicates that there are weaknesses in the present system of teaching practice assessment, particularly in the diversity of the methods of assessment. (Authors)