This issue is devoted to "Assessment that Informs Practice." In
addition to the usual departments, thematic articles include:
* Standardized Test Scores and
Alternative Assessments: Different Pieces of the Same Puzzle
* Assessing Student Understanding
with Interactive-Collaborative-Electronic Learning Logs
* Implementing Portfolios and Student-Led
Conferences
* Using Self Evaluation with Fourth
Graders
* Assessing Student Learning--and
My Teaching--Through Student Journals
* Determining What Is To Be Taught:
The Role of Assessment
* Students Will Rise to the Challenge
* Author Takes on High-Stakes Tests
* Statewide Portfolio Assessment
in Mathematics: A Teacher's Perspective
* State Achievement Tests Can Be
a Positive Force in Your Classroom
* Why You Should Care About TIMSS
* Aligning Assessment with Learning
Goals
Developed by the Center for Advancement of Learning, the Portfolio Assessment
Approach is a
six-step evaluation and documentation of individual learning preferences,
goals, strengths, and
weaknesses. It is designed for students experiencing or potentially
experiencing academic failures.
The information is used to evaluate student perceptions of his/her
learning tendencies and to
develop a strategies-guided approach to enhancing academic success.
The portfolio becomes part of the student's permanent records and is updated
continually during his/her academic career;
computer processing of the portfolio facilitates this process.
Monterrey Elementary School has a student population of approximately
530 students in
grades K-6.
In the areas of Teaching and Learning, we saw ourselves in different
lights, all the way from
Maintaining Status Quo to Predominance of New System. We have many
outstanding teachers
who run active classrooms involving students in hands-on, minds-on
learning, valuing all types of intelligences, and using authentic assessment
to measure success. We agree that we need to work toward teaching thematically,
incorporating more technology in an integrated curriculum approach. Our
staff development needs to be planned in a meaningful, effective, sustained
program.
Scholastic Portfolio Assessment
Scholastic Portfolio Assessment is a unique new system for appraising
children's work and is
ideally suited to the National Curriculum level descriptors. Each resource
book offers all the help and materials you need to establish portfolios
as an effective way to montior and evaluate children's development.
Client / Server - This network contains one computer acting as
a Server and the other
computers that are linked to it are clients. The Server will be responsible
for the data and
the clients will just be accessing it to get information.
Portfolio Assessment in the Language Arts
A. Require legible writing
B. Limit their topics
C. Model what the child wrote
D. Encourage sharing of writing
E. Consider your responses carefully
F. Response should encourage more writing
G. Include other writing in portfolio
H. Have child make a book about himself/herself
I. Pair writing and artwork together
What Is the Grady Profile?
If you are using any of the alternative assessment techniques
Performance-Based Assessment
Authentic Assessment
Portfolio Assessment
then you know that these techniques offer substantive benefits in the
classroom, but are difficult to implement because the information they
work with (actual exhibits of student work, qualitative and narrative evaluations,
classroom observations, student self-reflection) are cumbersome.
That's where the Grady Profile comes in. The Grady Profile is a Macintosh program that manages all the "stuff" for you. It encourages student self-assessment; parent-teacher conferencing; the use of the multimedia power of computers to capture and store all sorts of student work, providing an environment in these exhibits may be organized and evaluated ­p; where students can perform the self-assessment tasks that transform mere collections into portfolios.
The fourth National Education Goal adopted by the President and
the nation's governors states that our students will become first in the
world in mathematics and science achievement by the year 2000. To accomplish
this ambitious goal means a major change in mathematics curriculum standards
and frameworks. It is the intention that curriculum reform will greatly
affect the ways in which students learn and how teachers teach. As a result
there will be a need for assessment reform.
ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT FOR ADULT LEARNERS
As parents fear that the news reports are true about their children's
lower test scores and the
unhealthy environment in the public school classroom, they want to
stand behind "quick fixes" for the educational system. Some say colleges
and universities should do a better job preparing future teachers; the
teachers think that parents should be more supportive in the home environment.
Still others think the TV should be turned off so kids can tune into reading
and studying. Yet another group reflects on their own school days and wonders
why teachers don't teach and test The Basics? Shouldn't schools require
rote learning, full-class recitation and standardized testing, enabling
parents to compare or contrast their offspring to others in American or
even in the world?
Performance assessments, like standardized tests, have their
shortcomings,
particularly when used for high-stakes purposes. Many of the criticisms
levied against such assessments center around corruptibility, the
appropriateness of using tests as motivators, and equity issues. There
are
also serious psychometric issues related to the use of performance
assessments.
The Portfolio and Its Use: Developmentally Appropriate Assessment
of Young Children.
The subject of children's achievement and performance in school, and
even before school, has received increasing public attention during the
latter 1980s and early 1990s. A general consensus for assessment reform
is reflected by the volume and variety of professional literature on various
methods of assessment and the number of states that are seeking alternative
means to evaluate students.
Recommendations for Teachers
Teachers who have begun to use alternative assessment in their
classrooms are good sources for ideas and guidance. The following recommendations
were made by teachers in Virginia after they spent six months developing
and implementing alternative assessment activities in their classrooms.
A kindergarten teacher used portfolio assessment with her students.
After researching portfolios, she compiled a list of components for her
classes and began the school year. She found that students were enthusiastic
about portfolios, parents felt portfolios told more than
report cards, and she could better see student growth.
Educators use the term "authentic assessment" to refer to the practice of realistic student involvement in the evaluation of student achievement. Authentic assessments are performance-based and instructionally appropriate.
Portfolios: Mirrors of Learning.
Keefe, Charlotte Hendrick
TEACHING Exceptional Children, v27 n2 p66-67 Win 1995
Because there is not a great deal of documentation pertaining to the
use of portfolios for students with special needs, this set of ERIC citations
covers a broad range of disabilities and objectives.
A portfolio assessment system is suggested to bind quantitative and qualitative data together to produce a broader reflection of the learning of special education students. The value of portfolios in communicating skills and talents and in reflecting growth is described, along with the importance of student involvement in the process.
Teaching Portfolios and Portfolio Conversations for Teacher
Educators and Teachers.
Wolf, Kenneth; And Others
Action in Teacher Education, v17 n1 p30-39 Spr 1995
Theme issue title: "Connecting Theory and Practice in Teacher Education."
Discusses the use of teaching portfolios and portfolio-based conversations
with colleagues to enhance teacher effectiveness, presenting a portfolio
conversation guide that highlights the
importance of conducting the sessions properly, organizing an appropriate
group, and focusing on specific portfolio contents. Implications for teacher
education are noted.
Assessment may be defined as "any method used to betterunderstand the current knowledge that a student possesses." This implies that assessment can be as simple as a teacher'ssubjective judgment based on a single observation of studentperformance, or as complex as a five-hour standardized test. The idea of current knowledge implies that what a student knows is always changing and that we can make judgments about student achievement through comparisons over a period of time.
"We need to find ways to teach kids and assess their understanding
according to what is real for them, not what's real for adults," explains
Janell Uerkwitz, a second grade teacher at Dayton Elementary School in
Dayton, Indiana. And what's real for students? Uerkwitz believes she knows:
nontraditional, hands-on activities that promote student participation
rather than traditional paper-and-pencil tests. She goes on to explain,
"It is a lot easier to give a
textbook lesson and give them an exam . . . but that's cut and dried
and doesn't always give us a true picture of what the child knows."
The portfolio is a record of the child's process of learning:
what the child has learned and how she has gone about learning.
Assessing the Development of Preschoolers. ERIC Digest.
Katz, Lilian G.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education,
To help parents address those aspects of their child's development which
may need special encouragement, support, or intervention, this digest delineates
11 categories of behavior for assessment. Parents should not be alarmed
if their children are having difficulty in only
a few categories, and they should not judge their children's permanent
behavior based on 1 day's observation.