Performance appraisal continues to be an area of research within Human Resource Development. This case study explores the impact of promotion portfolios upon the performance and professional development of university professors. Specific themes from data analysis indicated that portfolios are viewed as a performance appraisal measure/learning tool…

Portfolio assessment is an alternative form of assessment that is particularly attractive to adult, career, and vocational educators because it includes the assessment of active learning and performance rather than the mere recall of memorized facts. Portfolio assessment serves the interests of business and industry by forging a connection between…

Assessment of practice at diploma, degree, and postgraduate levels in nursing and midwifery education in Britain was the focus of a research study. Key issues from a critical review of literature on the assessment of theory and practice at different academic levels were as follows: lack of clarity in defining "levels"; inconsistencies in…

School researchers and administrators are developing new ways to measure student skills and progress, using portfolios, self-evaluation, verbal answers to mathematics problems, and other assessment formats. This book explains the assessment reform movement and describes programs across the country that have embraced new forms of assessment.…

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 paper reports on the development and utilization of the professional portfolio in the University of San Francisco's (California) teacher education program. It reviews the rationale and guidelines for using this performance-based teacher assessment model, reports the results of a survey of 45 recent credential program graduates' use of the…

This paper describes the experiences of student teachers and teacher educators at Bank Street College of Education, New York as they use the portfolio process to construct and reconstruct an educational vision through the telling and writing of stories. After describing the use of narrative research in teacher education, the paper explores the…

Portfolio design is integrated as an early project in the teacher education curriculum at the University of Idaho. The project provides students with a first experience in gathering and organizing data for the purpose of tracking professional growth and development. It also provides faculty with an authentic assessment tool. The portfolio causes…

This paper describes a plan for assessing academic and social growth of special education students. The targeted population consisted of six elementary students with hearing impairments and seven high school students with mental impairments. The problems of assessing special education students were documented through data collected from teacher…

This paper describes the Beginning Educator Support and Training (BEST) program in Connecticut. In 1999, Connecticut became the first state in the United States to implement mandatory portfolio assessment as a component of its teacher certification program. The BEST program itself has been part of the state's educational reform initiatives for…

This paper outlines a study involving the use of portfolios by first-year teachers after their experiences in a 10-month preservice teacher education program in which professional portfolios were implemented. Data were gathered from a questionnaire administered to teacher candidates at the end of their program, as well as from 2 sets of interviews…

This report describes the implementation of portfolio assessment in order for students and parents to become more aware of students' academic growth in writing for first/second grade students and math for seventh grade students. The targeted population consisted of elementary and middle school students in two middle class communities, located in…

This ERIC digest discusses strategies for recognizing and nurturing giftedness in young children in the regular classroom. It begins by describing giftedness and providing a list of characteristics common in gifted four-, five-, and six-year-olds. The use of portfolios for identifying giftedness is discussed, along with the benefits of consulting…

As teacher educators lead preservice teachers into 21st-century classrooms, they must employ models that take into account standards and accountability and employ assessment techniques that assure both the teacher educator and the potential teacher that the performance required and exhibited in field experiences is related to the real world…

Scores on professional licensure exams and transcript grades, used to evaluate the competencies of entry level teachers, fail to reflect the wide range of complex knowledge, skills, and dispositions that quality professional educators possess. As the demand for authentic, standards-based assessment of teacher performance continues to grow, teacher…