Performance assessment is a hot topic in school systems, and educators continue to analyze its costs, benefits, and feasibility as a replacement for high-stakes testing. Until now, researchers and policymakers have had to dig to find out what we know and what we still have to learn about performance assessment. Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning synthesizes the latest findings in the field, and not a moment too soon. Statistics indicate that the United States is in danger of falling behind if it fails to adapt to our changing world. The memory and recall strategies of traditional testing are no longer adequate to equip our students with the skills they need to excel in the global economy. Instead teachers need to engage students in deeper learning, assessing their ability to use higher-order skills. Skills like synthesizing information, understanding evidence, and critical problem-solving are not achieved when we teach to multiple-choice exams. Examples in Beyond the Bubble Test paint a useful picture of how schools can begin to supplement traditional tests with something that works better. This book provides new perspectives on current performance assessment research, plus an incisive look at what’s possible at the local and state levels. Linda Darling-Hammond, with a team of leading scholars, bring together lessons learned, new directions, and solid recommendations into a single, readily accessible compendium. Beyond the Bubble Test situates the current debate on performance assessment within the context of testing in the United States. This comprehensive resource also looks beyond our U.S. borders to Singapore, Hong Kong, and other places whose reform-mindedness can serve as an example to us.

Based on a large-scale international study of teachers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Ontario, and New York, this book illustrates the ways increased use of high-stakes standardized testing is fundamentally changing education in the US and Canada with a negative overall impact on the way teachers teach and students learn. Standardized testing makes understanding students' strengths and weaknesses more difficult, and class time spent on testing consumes scarce time and attention needed to support the success of all students—further disadvantaging ELLs, students with exceptionalities, low income, and racially minoritized students.

"From the director of Race to Nowhere comes a groundbreaking book for parents, students, and educators on how to revolutionize learning, prioritize children's health, and re-envision success for a lifetime"--

A forward-thinking look at performance assessment in the 21st century Next Generation Assessment: Moving Beyond the Bubble Test to Support 21st Century Learning provides needed answers to the nation's growing concerns about educational testing in America. Drawing on research and the experiences of leading states and countries, this new book examines how performance assessments can offer a feasible alternative to current high stakes tests. As parents, educators, and policymakers have increasingly criticized the effects of the teaching to the test mandate from the No Child Left Behind Act, the need for this resource has never been more critical. This summary volume to Beyond the Bubble Test speaks to the nationwide unease about current tests' focus on low-level skills, like recalling and restating facts, rather than higher-order skills such as problem-solving, analyzing, and synthesizing information. It illustrates how schools can use authentic assessments to improve teaching and learning as they involve students in conducting research, designing investigations, developing products and solutions, using technology, and communicating their ideas in many forms. This important book: Serves as a must-have resource for those interested in the most current research about how to create valid and reliable performance assessments Explains how educators can improve practice by developing, using, and scoring performance assessments Helps policymakers and educators accurately assess the benefits and possibilities of adopting performance assessments nationally If you're an educator, researcher, graduate student, district administrator, or education policy specialist, Next Generation Assessment is an indispensable resource you'll turn to again and again.

This practical resource shows you how to apply Sam Wineburgs highly acclaimed approach to teaching, "Reading Like a Historian," in your middle and high school classroom to increase academic literacy and spark students curiosity. Chapters cover key moments in American history, beginning with exploration and colonization and ending with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This book focuses on sterilizing grade filters in the biopharmaceutical industry, emphasizing practical applications of universal and dependable operational protocols, integrity testing, and troubleshooting to streamline the production and preparation of pharmaceuticals. Addresses the complexities of globalizing redundancy in filtration!

"[The anti-testing] movement now has a guidebook. . . . Kamenetz shows how fundamentally American it would be to move toward a more holistic system." -- New York Times Book Review The Test is an essential and critically acclaimed book for any parent confounded by our national obsession with standardized testing. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it points the way toward a hopeful future of better tests and happier kids.