In 2014 the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation replacing end-of-course, multiple-choice assessments with locally developed alternative assessments in five courses, including two middle school social studies courses. This policy allowed Virginia school divisions the autonomy to develop the format, quantity, and focus of their assessments…

Subconsciously, experienced teachers make use of situated knowledge: knowledge that is connected to, and arises from, the interactions between the physical environment where the action takes place and a material body acting in that environment. Since situated knowledge is important in day-to-day teaching to solve incidents, it should be taught in…

Western Governors University (WGU) is an online competency-based university in which students demonstrate content competence through a series of assessments. Assessments most often are performance-based or objective assessments that are developed in accordance with specific content objectives. Objective assessments generally assess lower-level…

The TOEFL iBT[TM] has increased the length of the reading passages in the reading section compared to the passages on the TOEFL[R] computer-based test (CBT) to better approximate academic reading in North American universities, resulting in a reduced number of passages in the reading test. A concern arising from this change is whether the decrease…

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…

While today's curriculum is largely driven by standards, many teachers find the lack of specificity in the standards to be confounding and even intimidating. Now this practical book provides middle and high school teachers with explicit guidance on designing specific objectives and developing appropriate formative and summative assessments to…

There are usually many testing activities going on in a school, with different tests serving different purposes, thus organization and planning are key in creating an efficient system in assessing the most important educational objectives. In the ideal case, an assessment system will be able to inform on student learning, instruction and…

The articles in this special theme issue discuss the relevance and effectiveness of strategies for developing assessments with students and teachers of color as the focal point. They contribute to a critical discourse on the potential of culturally responsive performance-based assessments. (SLD)

Whether in the science or language laboratory, carrying out health care procedures or demonstrating performance arts, faculty can improve skill evaluation through transparency and authenticity in exam construction, format, and grading.

An overview is provided of the "Authentic Assessment for Multiple Users" project funded by the National Science Foundation to determine whether portfolio assessment can be structured to permit meaningful aggregation for multiple hierarchical users. The research focus was in the context of science and mathematics instruction in grades…

This guide discusses evaluation as an element of good literacy education and discusses the development of an evaluation plan for learner-centered adult literacy programs. The provision of good literacy practice is the goal of everyone involved in learner-centered, community-based adult literacy programs. Since the philosophy of learner-centered,…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is one part of a comprehensive assessment system that is evolving in the United States. In the view of the NAEP Technical Subgroup for the National Education Goals Panel, the NAEP should be an independent, statistically rigorous longitudinal measure of educational attainment in the essential…

Good performance criteria can and must help define educational goals and serve as an instructional tool in the classroom. The rationale for considering instructional usefulness when designing performance criteria begins with the proposition that clearly stated performance criteria are excellent instructional tools. It is also apparent that…

In 1992 the Utah State Office of Education initiated a review of recent literature on performance assessment as a step in establishing the foundation of the Utah State Core Curriculum Performance Assessment Program. Profiles Corporation conducted the review of the literature and contacted educators in all 50 states regarding the current state of…

One educational change that is beginning to take hold is the use of alternative ways of testing and assessment, often referred to as authentic assessment. Advocates of authentic assessment believe that conventional testing is distorting educational goals, while authentic assessment can foster good educational practices. In fact, many educators…