Electronic portfolios (eportfolios) represent an assessment measure with strong potential to provide feedback about student performance to improve curricula and pedagogy, to determine individual students' mastery of learning and support feedback for improvement, and to actively involve students in the assessment process. This study examined the…

The authentic assessment method of student evaluation is particularly well suited to vocational education. It connects the way schoolwork is assessed with the way knowledge and competence are judged in the workplace by focusing on tasks that are simultaneously meaningful to learners and linked to school and nonschool demands. Portfolios are one…

Portfolios have been used in the authentic evaluation of artists, business professionals, students, and teachers. This paper examines the feasibility of using portfolios to evaluate administrators in training. The document describes portfolios and their uses in administrator-preparation courses, as job applications, and as on-the-job assessment of…

Three pamphlets (Practitioner's Guides) present guidelines from the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. The guidelines are based on theory-driven quality research that is problem-based, practice-relevant, and consumer-oriented. Each pamphlet has a section summarizing research from the literature or…

This handbook, part of the GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science) series, contains ready-made assessments for teachers to integrate within their presentation of activity-based mathematics and science units. The first main section of the book is called "Pearl's Journal: A Year in the Life of...." This fictitious teacher's journal…

Operating within a milieu of social, political, and economic change, educators are under increasing pressure to provide information about their instructional efforts. As instructors are called upon to do different types of teaching and to conduct their teaching differently, evaluation procedures must also address these changes. Self-appraisal…

A case study across 2 different elementary education settings examined (1) how well portfolios document literacy learning that is both authentic and aligned with curriculum; (2) teachers' ability to interpret and evaluate portfolio evidence from more than one site; and (3) what teachers learn about literacy instruction and assessment as a result…

The writing samples presented in this paper were selected from the portfolios of fourth-grade Vermont students as examples of the various points in Vermont's newly revised analytic writing assessment guide. The benchmark writing pieces in the paper, when used with the analytic assessment guide that begins the paper, are guideposts for assessing…

The use of electronic portfolios for authentic student assessment is growing rapidly (Batson, 2002). Creating portfolios electronically offers a number of benefits not available using traditional paper-based portfolios. Advantages include the portability from one application or institution to another, wider accessibility of the portfolio, and the…

This manual is designed to assist educators in using the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Alternate Assessment, an assessment intended to allow students with the most significant disabilities to participate in MCAS. The manual provides guidelines, materials, and procedures necessary for the preparation of student portfolios for…

This toolkit is a compilation of ideas, examples, suggestions, activities, tools, strategies, and templates for producing school portfolios that will result in continuous school improvement. The chapters are: (1) Introduction; (2) Continuous School Improvement; (3) The School Portfolio; (4) Information and Analysis; (5) Student Achievement; (6)…

In 1993-94, Louisiana began implementation of a new personnel evaluation plan that emphasized professional development. A decision was made to explore the use of a professional portfolio for each certified employee of the school system of Livingston Parish. The portfolio process was implemented in all the district's schools, but this report…

This study was conducted to determine whether the writing skills, as measured by the University Writing Requirement (UWR), of Kentucky high school graduates who had participated in Kentucky's Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) writing portfolios had improved in comparison with their peers in the past who had not done the writing…

There are many ways guidance counselors can help teachers achieve more optimal reading instruction. Counselors first may have to ascertain the kinds of problems faced by a student in learning to read. Assessing a student's ability to use picture clues to decipher words may be necessary with primary grade students. Knowledge about phonics, using…

It is important to teach students the ways in which rhetorical and literary texts are produced, distributed, and consumed. It is equally important, however, for teachers of writing, primarily members of English departments, to acknowledge the production and consumption processes of texts external to the genres of the academy and to recognize that…