In the United States, colleges of education are responding to demands for increased accountability. The purpose of this article is to describe one teacher education program's implementation of a performance evaluation tool during final internship that measures teacher candidates' development across four domains: Planning and Preparation,…

In 1996, a subcommittee of the State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards commissioned a study of the use of performance-based assessments in large-scale accountability systems. The idea was to look into current state assessment work on performance-based assessments to see what has been learned, but not widely reported, by those who…

To make the transition from traditional assessment, which was often counterproductive, to an array of assessment applications that will be more constructive for students, teachers must expand their vision of the relationship between assessment and effective schools. Assessment must be used to inform classroom decision making, and it must become…

This updated guide to using portfolios in educational assessment incorporates current teaching practices and new technology. The portfolio is defined as a systematic and organized collection of evidence used by the teacher and the student to monitor the growth of the student's knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The guide offers: (1) clear…

The New Standards Project, attempting to create an assessment system comprised of performance exams, portfolios and projects, may not have fulfilled its promise to create a national system of tests worth teaching to. However, NSP did deliver high- quality professional-development opportunities for hundreds of teachers across the nation. (Contains…

This paper discusses underlying beliefs about teaching that are related to the assessment of prospective teachers and elucidates some basic beliefs that are guiding the development of new types of assessments for new teachers. These new assessments are called "The Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers(TM)."…

Performance-based assessments and the instructional programs from which they emerge and into which they fit demand intelligent caring teachers with experience and knowledge in assessments, instruction, student learning, and human development theory. Full implementation of performance-based assessments requires that teachers discuss performance and…

This paper gives an overview of the methods of moderation, or quality assurance and quality control, as they may be more widely known, that are used to enhance the quality of student assessment. The discussion is based on the educational systems of the United Kingdom but is applicable to assessment in other countries. Quality in assessment is seen…

The Equipped for the Future (EFF) framework describes adult performance along these four dimensions: structure of the knowledge-base; fluency of performance; independence of performance; and range of conditions for performance. When completed it will include a developmental sequence of descriptions of learner performance for each EFF standard;…

The New Standards Project (NSP) is an effort to create a state- and district-based assessment and professional development system to serve as a catalyst for major educational reform. As part of a professional development strategy tied to assessment, 114 teachers, curriculum supervisors, and assessment directors, representing 23 states and…

This book, which is intended for adult educators and human resource developers, presents guidelines for assessing adult learning. The following are among the topics covered in the book's eight chapters: (1) basic principles of informal assessment (relationship between learning and assessment activities; sequencing learning and assessment…