An approach to assessment is described that allows students to understand and help decide the criteria for good work. It is called "negotiable contracting." Negotiable contracting makes assessment a highly individualized process that recognizes the subtly different ways in which students master skills. Students and teachers jointly create a…

The need for effective ways of monitoring the quality of scoring of portfolios resulted in the development of a software package that provides scoring leaders with updated information on their assessors' scoring quality. Assessors with computers enter data as they score, and this information is analyzed and reported to scoring leaders. The…

The Connecticut Department of Education is in the process of generating a new Beginning Educator Support and Training Program (B.E.S.T.), which features a vision for the future, standards for elementary teaching, and performance and portfolio assessments. The aim is to develop a fluid plan for professional development of teachers. This case study…

This paper describes a tool called the Professional Development Project (PDP) that helps preservice teachers become reflective teachers. Action research in a course for preservice teachers, "Reading and Literature in the Schools," from 1993 through 1996 led to the development of the PDP. Action research helps students become reflective…

For use by K-12 teachers or specialists, this book presents an informal classroom tool for assessing reading processes which is rooted in contemporary research and practice. The book features separate assessments for narrative and expository retelling, portfolio checklists to help analyze results, modeled "think-alouds," and an annotated…

This study examined the hypothesis that children who had participated in a full-day kindergarten program would not show a significantly higher academic achievement in first grade as measured by the standardized portfolio assessment than children who participated in a half-day program. The study compared four portfolio assessment scores of two…

The system whereby teacher education faculty demonstrate their professional rectitude in most colleges and universities is a record of achievement more properly called a dossier (a collection of material and evidence) rather than a portfolio (the developmental record of a career). The scholarship of teaching (one of four overlapping functions of…

This guide on work force development legislation is designed for professional development of new adult education instructors in Florida. It is one of three manuals developed to supplement a previous series of professional development manuals. Section 1 provides an overview of work force development legislation, focusing on the following new…

This report discusses the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that require states to develop alternate assessments for students with disabilities who cannot participate in large-scale assessment programs. The report also profiles five state alternate assessment practices that have been developed or are emerging and…

This book presents 93 essays that offer guidance, reassurance, and commentary on the many activities leading up to and surrounding classroom instruction in first-year composition. Essays in the book are written by instructors who teach in community colleges, liberal arts colleges, state university systems, and research institutions. The 14 section…

Portfolios provide a means to represent excellence and variety in the work of one preparing to be a teacher. This paper reviews the implementation of portfolios with preservice teachers and describes appropriate electronic artifacts for inclusion in an electronic portfolio. Teaching portfolios are typically composed of artifacts, reproductions,…

A classroom study investigated the use of daily action logs as a means for assessing the progress of advanced students of English as a second language (ESL) at the college level. The approach was intended to promote student reflection, help make explicit the class' content, and provide feedback to the teacher on the effectiveness of the…

To gain insights into preservice teachers' growing capacity to be exploring, reflective practitioners, portfolio assessment is being adopted in some teacher education programs. The teacher as reflective practitioner and portfolio assessment became the foundations of one Carnegie-I research university's four-phase secondary education program.…

A team of teacher educators, preservice teachers, and host teachers collaborated to develop and pilot a performance-based assessment model in the form of multimedia portfolios as a means of providing tangible, authentic, qualitative data to document preservice teacher learning objectives and P-12 student outcomes and, at the same time, promote…

Discusses use of teacher talk about innovation as an alternative to journal entries in eliciting reflective behavior. Describes a study that investigated whether teachers assembled to discuss portfolio assessment would spontaneously engage in four levels of action (describing, informing, confronting, and reconstructing). Analysis of transcripts…