Describes a composition teacher's efforts to diagnose her vocational college students' literacy skills by using a more authentic performance assessment that integrates reading and writing. (SR)

Describes the frustrations and successes of seeking student accountability through the assessment of comprehension in literature discussions. Presents journal entries and discussions from three teachers. (MG)

To support educational reforms, new assessments must stress the performance of complex, holistic tasks, not snippets of performance in segments, elements, or chunks of complex tasks. Sidebars present helpful guidelines for developing staff and creating an assessment. Assessments can assume numerous shapes, including budgeting activities,…

Experiences of various schools in implementing Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences demonstrate that learning about innovation should be a regular, natural part of schools; barriers between insiders and outsiders should be eliminated; teachers should be prepared as change agents; and the value of academic research should be reconsidered. (SK)

Considers the role of the writing center within the context of a large writing program. Describes how the adoption of a portfolio system of grading at the University of Southern California focused attention on this issue. Narrates the changes brought about by the adoption of a portfolio assessment system. (HB)

Offers three brief descriptions, from three high school English teachers, of unusual or alternative forms of assessment they use successfully in their classrooms: a system of tokens in an alternative school; a literary digest; and creating CD soundtracks for novels read in class. (SR)

Assessments of a 6-year-old Spanish monolingual and 5-year-old bilingual children included a home-language survey, parents' and teachers' ratings, cartoon conservation scales, and standardized tests. Nonverbal cognitive development was shown to influence language acquisition. Cultural and linguistic factors affected children differently. (SK)

Describes a 4-year teacher action research project focused on whether student dialogue journals can provide documentation of student learning from a cultural unit taught in Spanish. Results are discussed. (Author/VWL)

This article first discusses purposes for assessing mathematics performance, including comparison with peer performance, identifying mastered skills, and targeting mathematics strategies. It then explains a variety of assessment strategies, including teacher-made tests, checklists/rating scales, graphs of student performance, interviews, miscue…

Paper introduces a collection of papers on educational assessment, noting controversies surrounding both old and new assessment methods, discussing the persistent set of technical issues that must be addressed by the research community in measurement, and examining work by the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student…

Techniques described in this article provide teachers with tools to understand the mental processes that students engage in as they read, write, and problem solve. Use of these techniques may also encourage students to become more active participants in their education. The techniques include journals and learning logs, clinical interviews, and…

This article describes the development of Kentucky's alternative assessment for students with disabilities, including the content and scoring standards for the Alternate Portfolio. Specific examples of entries at each grade are given. Initial implementation data are presented, and critical issues in the development of alternate statewide…

Defines alternate assessments, describes methods used to collect data, and describes domains in which data should be collected. The results of a focus group study in which teachers delineated ways in which data might be collected using each of the methods in each of the domains is reported. (Author/CR)

This study investigated teachers' assessment practices in a high-stakes testing environment. Questionnaires were administered to 168 practicing teachers earning a master's degree in education. In-depth interviews were conducted with five of these teachers. The results showed that teachers reported using more traditional, close-ended assessments…

Classroom-based assessment is the collection and evaluation of evidence of student learning, focusing on indicators of meaningful and valuable student progress. This type of assessment includes alternative forms of testing, such as performance tasks, which allow students to communicate or display mastery in different forms. According to Herman,…