Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century: Supporting Educational Needs

Description

Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century Supporting Educational Needs Valerie Shute and Betsy Becker, editors Assessment continues to take center stage in contemporary education, not merely for the data themselves, but for what they can tell us about students and their instructors—and even more important, about educational domains that need upgrading. Success in the technology-driven modern world increasingly depends on new competencies (many of which have yet to be fully identified), requiring new methods for their accurate measurement. Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century asks readers to rethink the way assessment is conducted and competencies are defined, placing the process in the context of lifelong learning across subject domains. This forward-looking dialogue between contributors in education research, practice, and policy examines a range of specific assessment issues, technologies to address these needs, and larger policy concerns. Chapters focus on the most pressing goals and challenges facing the field today, including: • Using assessment to strengthen learning. • Recognizing the “natural” role of assessment in everyday life. • Creating an assessment culture in the schools. • Improving assessment through evidence-based methods. • Assessing competencies based in new media and technologies. • Making assessment relevant to students and faculty. Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century is a finely detailed blueprint for researchers in education and cognition, as well as for psychometricians in private and government agencies. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Prelude: Assessment for the 21st Century....Pages 1-11 Human Action and Social Groups as the Natural Home of Assessment: Thoughts on 21st Century Learning and Assessment....Pages 13-39 Growing Learning and Assessment in the 21st Century....Pages 41-47 Aiming at Learning: Assessment as the Critical Link....Pages 49-68 Sharpening the Aim: Making Strides to Create an Assessment Culture in Schools....Pages 69-73 Using Evidence Centered Design to Think About Assessments....Pages 75-100 Thinking About Assessments in a Transitional Time....Pages 101-106 Participatory Assessment of 21st Century Proficiencies....Pages 107-138 Making Assessment Relevant to Students, Teachers, and Schools....Pages 139-165 Automated Essay Scoring in a High Stakes Testing Environment....Pages 167-185 Assessing Change in Learners’ Causal Understanding Using Sequential Analysis and Causal Maps....Pages 187-205 Development and Use of a Tool for Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness in Grades K-12....Pages 207-228 Epilogue: Achieving Quality 21st Century Assessment....Pages 229-237 Back Matter....Pages 239-257