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?
Balloons is an imaginative three-level language course for three-, four-, and five-year-olds that introduces children to English through play. Balloons uses the same pedagogy pioneered and proven in New Parade - from the Warm-Up, Presentation, Practice, and Application through Assessment and Enrichment. Children learn English playfully through songs, chants, games, TPR, and art projects.
Originating in a recent CIERA conference held at the University of Michigan, this book brings together the nation's most distinguished researchers to examine how readers understand text and how comprehension is assessed. The first part provides both national and historical contexts for the study of reading comprehension. The second part examines how vocabulary, motivation, and expertise influence comprehension, and it includes analyses of the developmental course and correlates of comprehension. Chapters in the third part consider how schools focus on comprehension for instruction and assessment. The fourth part includes chapters on large-scale assessment that analyze how test formats and psychometric characteristics influence measures of reading comprehension. At the end of each part is a commentary--written by an expert--that reviews the chapters, critiques the main points, and synthesizes critical issues.
This book offers colleges and universities a framework and tools to design an effective and collaborative assessment process appropriate for their culture and institution. It encapsulates the approach that Peggy Maki has developed and refined through the hundreds of successful workshops she has presented nationally and internationally. Maki starts with a definition of assessment as a process that enables us to determine the fit between what we expect our students to understand and be able to do and what they actually demonstrate at points along their educational careers. She then presents a framework--accompanied by extensive examples of processes, strategies and illustrative campus practices, as well as key resources, guides, worksheets, and exercises--that will assist all stakeholders in the institution to develop and sustain assessment of student learning as an integral and systematic core institutional process.
Edited by: Fruchtzwerg - 4 May 2009
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Designing Performance Assessment Systems for Urban Teacher Preparation presents an argument for, and invites, critical examination of teacher preparation and assessment practices--in light of both the complexity and demands of urban settings and the theories of learning and learning to teach that guide teacher education practices. This dynamic approach distinguishes the authors' stance on urban teacher assessment as one that can help address social justice issues related to gender, race, socioeconomic class, and other differences, and at the same time promote the professional development of all educators engaged in the process of learning to teach. The contextually bound, sociocultural stance that informs this book promises greater teacher and student achievement.
