By Ron Berger (Heinemann, 160 pages, $17.50) BUY NOW! reviewed by Laura Flaxman More than ten years ago, when I first saw Ron Berger present a portfolio of his students’ work and explain the process behind these beautiful and impressive artifacts, I was struck by this master teacher’s combination of skill, passion, energy and humility. An Ethic of Excellence: Building
Take a stand with CES! Commentary on this statement, links to more resources, and an action kit of advocacy tools, including an online petition, sample press releases, Op/Ed, letter to the editor, and methods for communicating with lawmakers can be found on our website. We urge you to sign the petition, alert your colleagues and friends, and join the CES
Embedding assessment into classroom instruction entails setting clear objectives for what students will be learning, and then designing both activities that will get them there and ways to tell whether they did. If teachers do this, they can use class discussions and project work as a means of assessing what their students know without using conventional tests. In this 90-minute
How can a school ensure that its graduates are meeting community standards? Seniors at Maine’s Yarmouth High School help teachers design a year-long seminar course that explores a series of interdisciplinary topics (like “race, culture, and identity”) from the perspectives of science and humanism. Working alone and in groups, they read and discuss texts and pursue their individual research. At
What’s not on the test? Teachers, students, and parents are drawing new attention to the vital skills and habits that most state tests ignore — and asking for more and richer ways to show what they have learned. A group of New Jersey fourth-graders spreads a map on the floor and calculates with a bar scale how far they must
When we work on goal setting at Greenfield Center School (GCS), we have a practice of showing what the relationships, interaction, teaching practices, and evidence of learning look and sound like. Making theory more concrete helps us all to envision the work ahead. In 2006, a group of elementary level Essential school educators developed a Statement of Values about our
Eleventh and twelfth grade students in “Academy X,” a leadership and humanities academy at Sir Francis Drake High School in suburban Marin County, California spent nine weeks researching the school facilities crisis that faces not only their own area but the whole state. Working in groups, the students researched the facilities problem by meeting with school officials and state policy-makers
Educators in the Coalition of Essential Schools share a commitment to the idea that they need to assess students’ progress to help students keep learning and to help teachers keep getting smarter about how to teach. There is also a large degree of consensus among Coalition educators that standardized tests cannot be the most important element in an assessment system-because
Daniel Burgess, a junior at Poland Regional High School in Poland, Maine, doesn’t mince words. “I’m a procrastinator,” he says, “And I will do a lot to get out of assignments that I don’t like.” Last year, Dan approached his Sophomore Core Portfolio with trepidation. But Dan eventually realized that the Portfolio was a unique opportunity, a chance to focus
Coalition teachers require multidimensional exhibitions of skills and understanding to know that students have met our standards.Coalition students need opportunities to demonstrate their learning over the course of months and years. Setting up such assessments demands time, deep connections and professional competence. We know that standardized tests provide only a limited opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know. Linda
To help schools involved with Maine’s Learner-Centered Accountability Project, staff from the Southern Maine Partnership (S.M.P.) and participating schools have created a comprehensive assessment system model. S.M.P. schools are in the process of integrating this model into their assessment systems. Level I assessments are the multitude of assessments typically used in classrooms: vocabulary quizzes, study guides and other demonstrations of
Multi-line central school phone systems can foul up attempts to telecommunicate. A good solution is to install a few dedicated single lines exactly where you need them to use your modems. No matter how fast computers are, people still take time to learn new things. Allow for plenty of extra time to get teachers and students up to speed, and
No matter how powerful, high tech alone can’t make schools better. But if schools will first define the issues facing them, technology can prove a key strategy in achieving their goals. Ninth-grade history students in Tucson, Anzona take on the roles of citizens of the ancient Greek city-states competing for survival-huddled in teams as Macintosh computers calculate the economic and
The concept for the Digital Portfolio was developed by David Niguidula with the support of the IBM Corporation, as a computer-based tool for what the Exhibitions Project at the Coalition has termed “planning backwards.” A first implementation was developed by Richard Bourgon at the Coalition of Essential Schools. Primary development of the current prototype was done by Michelle Riconscente of
Elizabeth Herbert provides a nuanced analysis of how creating student portfolios affects students, teachers, parents and a school community. The Power of Portfolios presents Herbert’s learning about portfolios-inspired by Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences work-as a portfolio itself, distillations of lessons learned and questions raised in seventeen years as principal of the kindergarten through fourth grade Crow Island School in Winnetka,
Schools around the country have turned to Senior Projects as a way to synthesize and demonstrate a student’s intellectual as well as life skills. Typically, such projects arise out of students’ individual passions or interests and are mentored by an outside expert in the field. At Henry M. Jackson High School outside Seattle, students spend an entire year pulling together
Teachers who like to use activities or projects to bring instruction to life may also assume that such activities make valid and reliable assessments of what a student understands. Not necessarily, warns Grant Wiggins in his 1998 book, Educative Assessment — but it’s simple to check, using these two questions: 1. Could the student do well at the task for
General guides to technology Report of the Technology for Restructuring Institute, Toni M. Maddox, ed.; published by Center for Excellence in Education, Indiana University, 201 North Rose Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405. A guide in outline form which identifies key issues in school change (including authentic assessment, learning styles, outcome-based education, student as worker); lists references and resources in each area;
Fairtest: National Center for Fair and Open Testing The advocacy heavyweight for alternatives to high-stakes standardized tests, FairTest offers a resource-rich web site, The FairTest Examiner quarterly print newsletter, and a variety of publications devoted to critiques and alternatives within the testing reform movement. Don’t miss the website’s Assessment Reform Network, which will connect you with local movements supporting fair,
Match the statement at the top with the appropriate method from the list at the bottom. (Some methods may apply to more than one item) 1. I want to figure out how to improve my teaching in my classroom. 2. I want to figure out how to revise my classroom curriculum. 3. I want to figure out how to place