Developing and Using Classroom Assessments (3rd Edition)

This book and the accompanying Web site provide a significant but succinct discussion of the development and use of classroom assessments. The book is designed for college courses and other settings for which a full survey textbook is inappropriate in terms of coverage and cost. Developing and Using Classroom Assessmentsis particularly appropriate in the following settings: An educational psychology course that includes a substantive discussion of assessment An integrated methods course in which assessment is taught as one of several components A full-length assessment course that uses a series of readings or involves the class in extensive field experience Self-study by school teachers and post-secondary instructors FEATURES OP THIS BOOK This book engages the reader. To illustrate, take time to page through the book and you will find numerous queries embedded in the text. Each is labeled "Apply What You Are Learning" and invites the reader to immediately apply recently learned concepts to realistic situations. Subsequent text often builds on these queries. This book also engages readers by drawing upon the considerable experience each of us has had with assessments as students and teachers. The introduction to each chapter uses familiar situations to establish relevance for issues to be addressed. Each chapter concludes with activities that connect the content of that chapter to real-world needs in the classroom. Developing and Using Classroom Assessmentsalso incorporates the broader context within which classroom assessments occur. For instance, the major implications of cognitive psychology to assessment are discussed throughout the book, such as the differences between declarative and procedural knowledge, the nature of problem solving, and options for assessing each. Similarly, in recognition that informal assessments represent a high proportion of classroom assessment activities, a full chapter is devoted to using informal observations and questions, and another chapter addresses their use to integrate assessment into instruction. ORGANIZATION Developing and Using Classroom Assessmentsis organized into four parts. Part I provides the teacher with a framework for assessing students. Components of this framework include determining how results of an assessment will be used, establishing the behaviors that indicate whether or not learning has taken place, gathering evidence to determine whether an assessment is valid, and establishing whether it is reasonable to generalize from observed performance to unobserved performance. These components of the assessment framework are illustrated with practical and familiar examples. This assessment framework is then applied extensively in Parts II, III, and IV of the book. Parts II and III are concerned with the development, administration, and scoring of assessments. Part II focuses on written tests, including the essay, short-answer, and objectively scored formats. In Chapters 6 through 9, the reader learns when and how to use each format, including nontrivial attributes that should be built into each type of test item. The reader immediately practices what has been learned by critiquing a combination of well-constructed and faulty test items. Chapter 10 is concerned with helping students take written tests. Part III focuses on alternative assessments, including informal observations and questions, performance assessments, and portfolios. Books on assessment often provide a cursory treatment of the casual observation and questioning of students, even though these informal assessments provide the basis for most formative evaluations in the classroom. Chapter 11 discusses these assessments in some detail. It identifies qualities critical to casual questioning and observation and illustrates their relevance through analogies to social interactionsAlbert Oosterhof is the author of 'Developing and Using Classroom Assessments (3rd Edition)', published 2002 under ISBN 9780130942043 and ISBN 0130942049.