Now in paperback! "The most comprehensive and exhaustive treatise available on the imperative to change the ways we test and assess student performance...it will become a major reference work for supporters of student-centered assessment." --Educational Leadership "A 'must' book for the on-going debate on American school reform." --Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools What is assessment and how does testing differ from it? Why are performance tests, by themselves, not an adequate system of student assessment? How might we better "test our tests" beyond current technical standards? And why won't increased national testing offer the accountability of schools we so sorely need? In Assessing Student Performance, Grant P. Wiggins explores these questions and clarifies the limits of testing in an assessment system. He analyzes problematic practices in test design and formats that prevent students from explaining their answers. By showing us that assessment is more than testing and intellectual performance is more than right answers, Wiggins leads us to new systems of assessment that more closely examine students' habits of mind and provide teachers and policy makers with more useful and credible feedback.

It is an exceptionally thoughtful assessment of assessment, and I am (along with anyone else who broods about education) much in your debt. Jerome Bruner, personal communication with the authorWhen this award-winning book was originally published in 1994, a review in the TES said: Beyond Testing is a refreshingly honest look at the dilemmas faci

Walter Lippmann wrote his "Public Opinion" at a time when something like the 'mass media' was coming into existence. Prior to the age of electronic communication, the only mechanism for reaching large numbers of individuals was the newspapers. In World War I, he saw how opportunistic nations used the newspapers to serve their often nefarious aims. Lippmann, however, believed that in the hands of super-intelligent, disinterested, omni-benevelont 'experts, ' the 'mass media' could bring about world peace. The school system, the advent of radio, and of course, the television, were arriving or coming along shortly. Each allowed a small group of people the ability to manage a much larger group, inspiring optimism among liberals and progressives that with the right forumula, the horrors seen in World War I would never occur again. Lippmann wrote "Public Opinion" in 1922, shortly after World War I. In 1924, a certain Adolf Hitler would be spending time in jail. If this merited any mention in any newspaper, it is doubtful that no expert paid it any mind. 1939 was, after all, a long way off.

For college teachers & administrators.

In assessment, the portfolio has gained significant interest as a tool to monitor and appraise competence development in multiple domains of professional learning. In this book, a developmental use of assessment instruments is advocated, stressing a personalised or self-regulative and learning-oriented deployment of the assessment tool. Portfolio assessment viewed this way can support knowledge productivity of professionals, thus enhancing professional development. By this we mean the construction of knowledge through feedback and dialogue about performances as a recursive loop to inform the professional about accomplishment. Portfolio assessment therefore informs and scaffolds the learner to 'develop' further; it, so to speak, is pioneering development. Since the first introduction in several settings, teaching education, professional preparation, instructional program evaluation, student learning in several domains: nursing, teaching, training, and human resource development, portfolios have been studied extensively. It is challenging to gauge the routes along which the reasons for the interest in portfolios have shifted from one problem to the other. following lines during the past 15 years, shifting its perspective as insights grew and demands changed.

Undertaking Capstone Projects in Education provides students with all of the information required to successfully design and complete a capstone project. Guiding the reader in a step-by-step process, this book covers how to create a question, select a topic of interest, and apply the best possible design solutions. Structured in a way that will help readers build their skills, chapters explore all aspects of the capstone project from the inception of the idea, to laying the foundations, designing the project, analysing the data, and presenting the findings. Filled with examples and written in a friendly and collaborative style, this key guide uses simple language and easy-to-understand examples to unpack complex research issues. This book is essential reading for students and anyone interested in undertaking a capstone project in the field of education.

Charts the recent shifts in Australian education, focusing on their implications for teachers. Incorporating a range of new research, this book also examines contemporary issues facing educators, including: the multicultural classroom; pressures faced by the new teacher; and how to make their induction easier.