As the use of standards-based assessment spreads in response to the increased emphasis on accountability, physical educators are faced with the task of demonstrating how their curricula and learning outcomes align with national, state, and district standards. Implementing assessments that align with each of these standards can be a real challenge. Meeting Physical Education Standards Through Meaningful Assessment: Research-Based Strategies for Secondary Teachers will help you simplify this task. With practical, easy-to-implement strategies, this resource guides both experienced and novice secondary physical education teachers in assessing students to ensure they learn what is essential for leading vigorous, healthy, and active lives as adults. Meeting Physical Education Standards Through Meaningful Assessment begins with a quick primer on the benefits of using standards-based assessment, helping you become familiar with current national standards as well as the importance of selecting effective assessment strategies. Next, you’ll learn about six power standards that are based on NASPE standards and detail clear objectives designed to encourage your students’ growth as physically educated individuals, such as fitness knowledge, self-motivation, and sportsmanship. Each power standard includes a corresponding kid-friendly objective that states the standard’s intent in easy-to-understand language so you can communicate to your students what you want them to achieve. Each standard also identifies learning targets that define what is necessary for achieving that standard. You’ll learn how to assess students on each of the power standards and how to plan physical education lessons that connect to each standard. Next, you’ll discover how game-based assessments can help you evaluate students according to each standard in the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains. These active assessments also keep your students engaged and challenged and help you make the most of your instructional time. Finally, you’ll learn how to assess students on several standards simultaneously during activity and how to differentiate instruction. Meeting Physical Education Standards Through Meaningful Assessment jump-starts your assessment overhaul with ready-to-use formative and summative assessments, including templates and answer keys for each form. All of these forms and templates are accessible online through the book’s accompanying web resource. If you want to change your current assessment system and are looking for some help getting started, then this book is for you! Strengthen your assessment process, align your curriculum with physical education standards, and help your students on the path toward a lifetime of physical fitness with Meeting Physical Education Standards Through Meaningful Assessment.

Today's university lecturers are faced with the challenge of educating students to see beyond the limits of their own discipline and to come up with innovative solutions to societal challenges. Many lecturers would like to put more emphasis on teaching students how to integrate diverse forms of knowledge, work together in teams, critically reflect and become self-regulated learners. These lecturers are breaking down the silos of scientific disciplines as well as the barriers between academia and society and responding to the changing role of universities in society. Just as teaching and learning are ready for change, so is assessment. In this book, we call for an assessment strategy with a greater emphasis on assessment for and assessment as learning, with a focus on giving powerful feedback and the use of authentic assessment tasks as well as alignment with the intended learning outcomes and your pedagogical beliefs. If you are looking for ways to assess integration, collaboration, reflection, and critical thinking rather than only assessing the acquisition of knowledge, the examples in this handbook are inspiring initiatives that can point you to new directions in assessment.

Grading systems often reward on-time task completion and penalize disorganization and bad behavior. Despite our best intentions, grades seem to reflect student compliance more than student learning and engagement. In the process, we inadvertently subvert the learning process. After careful research and years of experiences with grading as a teacher and a parent, Cathy Vatterott examines and debunks traditional practices and policies of grading in K–12 schools. She offers a new paradigm for standards-based grading that focuses on student mastery of content and gives concrete examples from elementary, middle, and high schools. Rethinking Grading will show all educators how standards-based grading can authentically reflect student progress and learning—and significantly improve both teaching and learning. Cathy Vatterott is an education professor and researcher at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, a former middle school teacher and principal, and a parent of a college graduate. She has learned from her workshops that "grading continues to be the most contentious part . . . conjuring up the most intense emotions and heated disagreements." Vatterott is also the author of the book Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs.

Teachers in their first few years of their teaching career require high quality, structured support to begin the journey towards becoming experts. Establishing research-based best practices and working habits set up early career teachers for a fulfilling and successful career. The requirements of teachers are constantly changing, and teachers need to continually adapt their knowledge and practices to fit schools’ changing demographics. Having a toolbox of research-based best practices to draw upon can support early career teachers as they move from theory to practical application when the learning curve is the steepest. Strengthening the system of support includes increasing teachers’ influence over their day-to-day work and developing positive and supportive cultures of learning. Supporting Early Career Teachers With Research-Based Practices presents both theoretical and practical research to support the conceptual understanding of educational praxis for common areas with which early career educators may require additional expertise or support. This book is intended to be a valuable contribution to the body of literature in the field of education by supplying research-based teaching practices for modern education. Primary topics covered include professional learning, classroom management, student-teacher relationships, teaching diverse students and inclusive educational practices, and teacher self-care strategies. This book is a valuable reference tool for early career teachers of all subject areas and grade levels, school administrators, teacher mentors and guides, education faculty in higher education, educational researchers, curriculum developers, instructional facilitators, practicing teachers, pre-service teachers, professional development coordinators, teacher educators, researchers, academicians, and students interested in teaching practices and support for the early career teacher.

In this book, the authors provide readers with a straightforward approach to doing assessment in a way that is meaningful, manageable, and sustainable over time. Including a straightforward overview of assessment concepts and principles and practical, easy-to-follow instructions for multiple assessment tools and key steps in the assessment process, this book is a handy, all-in-one how-to guide. In addition, the text guides readers toward the development of a culture of assessment. Writing in a conversational tone that has helped the authors to successfully teach assessment principles and practices to faculty and administrators from a variety of academic disciplines and institutions, the book reads as if a friendly, supportive assessment professional is by your side.The book begins with an overview of the assessment process and key assessment concepts and principles. Subsequent modules provide detailed instructions and specific tips for carrying out each step of the process, including three modules focused on creating and implementing specific assessment measurement tools. The authors recommend readers begin by reading Module 1, which provides a framework that will enhance understanding of each of the steps of the process that are spelled out in detail in subsequent modules. However, after that, each of the modules is designed to stand alone. Readers need not read the modules in order nor do they need to read all of them in order to benefit from the authors’ guidance. In addition, the authors have created a video to accompany Module 10 in which they take readers step-by-step through the use of Excel spreadsheets to organize and present assessment data.

The forces of technology and formative assessment combined! Formative assessment is a must for educators, but it can be difficult to juggle with all the other demands of a busy teacher’s to-do list. Fortunately, technology tools can help you work smarter, not harder. In #FormativeTech, you’ll find: Practical tips on how to use technology in formative assessment, including quick “pulse checks” for the whole class Formative assessment strategies for small groups and individual students Ideas for assessing project-based and inquiry-based approaches How to evaluate data and communicate results with families