Compares the costs of four assessment formats: (1) multiple choice; (2) open ended; (3) laboratory station; and (4) full investigation. Tracks the amount of time spent preparing the devices, developing scoring consistency for the devices, and scoring the devices as they were developed. Compares times as if 1,000 students completed each assessment.…

Describes how San Diego State University created a collaborative, objective, and quantitative metric, or rubric, to support its decision-making process regarding a Web portal. Discusses how the rubric was used to score different portal software systems during demonstrations and as a checklist and inventory to describe potential options. (EV)

P.A.C.E.S. stands for Participation, Appearance, Cleanup, Engineering, and Safety. The author has traditionally used design briefs to set the limits on processes and materials to solve a given problem. The design brief brings out all kinds of "out of the box" thinking, with many correct answers to solve the problem. The P.A.C.E.S. rubric ties the…

Teenagers' innate interest with the justice system is one of the reasons that so many high school literary classics teem with criminals, controversial issues, and trials. Novels such as "To Kill a Mockingbird," "A Separate Peace," "The Crucible," and "Twelve Angry Men" feature high-impact trials. In the author's desire to tap into this interest,…

Classroom assessment information should be the basis for important classroom processes and outcomes: students' study and work patterns, students' understanding of what they are learning, and teachers' instructional and grading decisions. Attention to principles of assessment quality, especially validity and reliability, increases confidence in the…

This article introduces the concept of Personal Educational Tools (PETs) and places these tools within the context of existing rationales for using technology for teaching, learning, and instruction. An identification of the distinguishing characteristics of these devices is followed by the conjecture that these types of classifying…

The act of collaboration is important when improving communication between administration and teachers, guiding school personnel to collectively clarify teaching and learning outcomes, and facilitating school stakeholders to engage in strategic institutional planning. As necessary as collaboration is, adults often do not know how to collaborate…

Instructional rubrics can help students to improve their writing skills and become self-regulated writers. Clear, accessible instructional rubrics give students repeated practice with planning, revising, and editing. It is also noted that using rubrics for self-assessment and peer assessment will help the students navigate the writing process in…

Many studies have indicated that at least 2 raters should score writing assessments to improve interrater reliability. However, even for assessments that characteristically demonstrate high levels of rater agreement, 2 raters of the same essay can occasionally report different, or discrepant, scores. If a single score, typically referred to as an…

Powers, Burstein, Chodorow, Fowles, and Kukich (2002) suggested that automated essay scoring (AES) may benefit from the use of "general" scoring models designed to score essays irrespective of the prompt for which an essay was written. They reasoned that such models may enhance score credibility by signifying that an AES system measures the same…

This article describes how the teacher work sample methodology of the Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality was implemented within the teacher education program at a small liberal arts college. Resulting program improvements are described, as well as on-going challenges. The adapted teacher work sample prompt and scoring rubric are…

This article presents results of the first two years of the introduction of a critical thinking (CT) component to standard freshman astronomy lab exercises for nonmajors. The component consists of a series of probing questions folded into the exercises, plus a formal grading rubric. The grading rubric is adapted from the generalized Washington…

Using rubrics to assess learning outcomes has been popular in education for over a decade. Rubrics have been identified as an important tool for assessing student performance, teacher effectiveness, and quality of the programs. Teachers in different subject disciplines have successfully used rubrics to achieve educational goals. Using…

An authentic assessment embedded in a course becomes a teaching tool integral to the aims of the course, not simply a mandated test. The following are appended: (1) Our Initial Rubric for SUNY GE Assessment: Critical Thinking; and (2) Our Revised Rubric for SUNY GE Assessment: Critical Thinking. (Contains 4 notes.)

Offering fresh alternatives to common instructional practices that fail to get results, this accessible, highly practical guide highlights ways to motivate middle school students while enhancing content-area learning. Each chapter features an enlightening case study of a teacher whose current strategies are not supported by research; describes…