Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. - Sandra Murphy and Terry Underwood

Table of Contents

Portfolio Practices: Lessons from Schools, Districts and States
Terms are defined; a brief history is presented; and there's a look at the distinctions between standardized tests and portfolios.
Mt. Diablo High School: Investigating Teaching
This department-wide portfolio program illustrates the use of portfolios for instruction and collaborative teacher-research.
Charles Ruff Middle School: Communicating Standards
and Expectations In this example you see the impact of assessment on instruction and student performance and the impact of interpretive theories of reading on assessment design.
Arts PROPEL: Designing Assessment for Learning
This program successfully merged - in a single program - assessment purposes that are often in conflict: assessment for learning and assessment for accountability. See how it was done.
Chinle: Creating Culturally Responsive Assessment
Here the authors show an attempt to design a system that could accommodate both the purposes of large-scale assessment and local, cultural purposes in teaching and learning.
Regional School District No.15: Scaffolding Self-Regulated Learning
In this chapter you see how teachers used performance task assessment lists, benchmark models of excellent work, and portfolios to scaffold the development of self-regulated learning.
Kentucky: Portfolios and Social Justice
Kentucky undertook an ambitious school reform effort in the early '90s and required all fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students to create portfolios. This chapter describes the system.
Vermont's Writing Portfolios: A Worthwhile Burden
As perhaps the oldest surviving portfolio assessment in the U.S., Vermont offers a number of insights for new designers of new systems. See how their program has impacted curriculum and instruction.
The New Standards Project: Assessment for Standards-Based Reform
The authors discuss the implications of standards-based reform for classroom instruction and highlight issues surrounding teachers' involvement in large-scale assessment.
Making Decisions about Assessment
This chapter synthesizes issues raised in earlier chapters and gives you a heuristic for program development that involves: aspirations for students; perspectives on learning and curriculum; approaches to reform and accountability; and methods for establishing fairness, reliability, and validity.