This book offers a philosophy about classroom assessment that places students at the center of the assessment equation. Classroom assessments must define for students what is expected of them, and they must provide the basis for decision making by students, parents, teachers, administrators, and the community. Part I of this volume, the first five…

Educational policy makers in many countries recognize the need to focus their policies more directly on factors affecting the quality of teachers. Common to these policies are attempts to reform teachers' pay systems and career paths to place greater value on teachers' work and give stronger incentives for professional development. Investing in…

Changes in assessment practices are central to ongoing reform efforts in science and mathematics education. The education community is currently focused on new ways to measure, evaluate, and report students' progress toward standards and learning goals. The focus of this publication, using assessment for informing and improving instruction is not…

This action research project evaluated a program to improve student motivation. The targeted population consisted of sixth- and eleventh-grade students in grammar/literature, physical education, and social studies classes in suburban Chicago. Three interventions were selected: incorporation of multiple intelligence strategies, implementation of…

Presents suggestions for using math performance assessments in elementary classrooms to help students develop mathematical thinking skills. The article lists National Council of Teachers of Mathematics evaluation standards for mathematics assessment and describes a number of problem-solving activities for students. (SM)

Considers key issues in implementing authentic assessment systems in middle schools, including its implications for content organization and classroom instruction, teacher and administrator involvement, and legitimizing teaching to the test. Presents concerns about authentic assessment related to outcomes and measurement, time constraints, labor…

Defines project-based learning as an instructional method that emphasizes learning activities that are student-centered, interdisciplinary, and integrated with real-world issues and practices. Discusses the use of technology; the need for a strong assessment system; considers rubric assessment and performance-based assessment; and includes an…

Education accompanied by social mobility is the cornerstone of the American dream. Yet, each year scores of children, especially those from the underprivileged class, fail to meet even the most modest academic expectations and subsequently never reach their academic potential. This research rejects earlier explanations of academic failure and…

Contemporary theories of learning postulate one or at most a small number of different learning mechanisms. However, people are capable of mastering a given task through qualitatively different learning paths such as learning by instruction and learning by doing. We hypothesize that the knowledge acquired through such alternative paths differs…

The 12th iteration of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2019) is organized under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society in Montreal, Canada. The theme of this year's conference is EDM in Open-Ended Domains. As EDM has matured it has increasingly been applied to open-ended and ill-defined tasks…

Responses of two high school history teachers on three performance assessments of teaching, part of the Stanford University Teacher Assessment Project, were analyzed. Differences that emerged in teacher attitudes and knowledge level illustrate what performance assessment can reveal about pedagogical knowledge and the implications for educational…

Examined the effectiveness of the showcase portfolio process as an instructional strategy to enhance the quality and quantity of students' writing and to motivate them to participate in the writing process. Findings supported claims that portfolios are not only an authentic evaluative procedure, but an equally powerful motivational approach and an…

Performance assessment, a method that makes possible the assessment of multiple dimensions of students' progress, including dispositions, is described. Criteria for good performance tasks are given, and their structure is illustrated through an example. A list of 10 dispositions toward mathematics and a self-evaluation group-performance rating…

Results of a HyperCard method for assessing the performance of expert and novice high school chemistry students solving stoichiometric chemistry problems (balancing chemical equations) is reported. MANOVA results indicate significant difference between expert and novice students solving the five stoichiometric chemistry problems using…

ComWeb is an analog/digital hybrid computer network providing communication between students and teachers directed from the teacher's workstation that can be adapted for deaf and hard of hearing students in a mainstream environment. This article describes the implementation of a ComWeb-based class in computer literacy classroom and compares…