Product Description

Wiggins makes the most convincing case yet that school-based assessment should aim mainly to improve, rather than to audit, student performance. Thanks to his penetrating discussions of feedback, the relationship of formal designs to practice, teaching for understanding, and rubrics, this book should dispel common misconceptions and elevate both the understanding and practice of authentic assessment

?Fred M. Newmann, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin , Madison

Assessing Student Performance laid out the theoretical foundations of a new assessment system that provides a more authentic picture of student capabilities than standardized testing. In Assessment for Excellence, Grant Wiggins provides guidance on how to design performance-based assessments for use in the classroom. This book covers all aspects of assessment design, including how to craft performance tasks that meet rigorous educational standards, how to score assessments fairly, and how to structure and judge student portfolios. It also looks at how performance assessment can be used to improve curriculum and instruction, grading and reporting?and teacher accountability.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61405 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
"Provides more pragmatic advice and background (including extensive references) on active assessments." (Choice)

"Wiggins' newest book is rigorous and provocative, bringing to bear his understanding of teaching for understanding and its implications for performance-based assessment." (Knowledge Quest)

Grant Wiggins puts at once the current craze for 'assessment' of students on a higher, more commonsensical and moral ground. He brings the sharp eye of a philosopher and the constructive humility of a veteran teacher to the tasks of explaining what we must know about our students' knowing and what this means for practice. This is a constructively unsettling book on our attitudes about learning and about our all-too-familiar and challengeable habits of assessing for it. (Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools)

"Through forceful, in-depth argument and diverse examples, Wiggins makes the most convincing case yet that school-based assessment should aim mainly to improve, rather than to audit, student performance. Thanks to his penetrating discussions of feedback, the relationship of formal designs to practice, teaching for understanding, and rubrics, this book should dispel common misconceptions and elevate both the understanding and practice of authentic assessment" (Fred M. Newmann, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

"Wiggins makes the most convincing case yet that school-based assessments should aim mainly to improve, rather than audit student performance. Thanks to his penetrating discussions of feedback, the relationship of formal design to practice, teaching for understanding, and rubrics, this book should dispel common misconceptions and elevate both the understanding and practice of authentic assessment." (Fred M. Newmann, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

"Linking curriculum and assessment is one of the most critical problems facing today's educators. Wiggins has given us an extraordinarily clear set of design principles to guide our practice. I recommAnd this book to curriculum designers, teachers, and administrators concerned with developing coherent curriculum resulting in improved student performance" "Educators engaged in writing and shaping curriculum should consider Wiggins' book a necessity to raise the quality of their efforts. His emphasis on critical design skills and his numerous practical examples makes this an accessible guide. Grant Wiggins is one of the most intelligent voices in the reform community. (Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, educational consultant, editor, and writer)

From the Inside Flap
Tests don't just test, they teach. In this book, Grant Wiggins outlines the design standards for performance-based assessments that promise students, no matter what their ability, clear and worthy performance targets, useful feedback, coaching, and the opportunity to progress toward excellence.As practical as it is provocative, Educative Assessment furnishes the information needed to design performance-based assessments, craft performance tasks that meet rigorous educational standards, score assessments fairly, and structure and judge student portfolios. It also shows how performance assessment can be used to improve curriculum and instruction, grading and reporting as well as teacher accountability. In addition, the book includes numerous design templates and flowcharts, strategies of design and troubleshooting, and myriad examples of assessment tasks and scoring rubrics that Wiggins developed and repeatedly refined using feedback from clients in schools, districts, and state department of education.Following the recommAndations for educative assessment mapped out in this book can provide students with authentic tasks that simulate or replicate adult tasks and offer teachers and students useful feedback that can generate stellar classroom performance.

From the Back Cover
Tests dont just test, they teach. In this book, Grant Wiggins outlines the design standards for performance-based assessments that promise students, no matter what their ability, clear and worthy performance targets, useful feedback, coaching, and the opportunity to progress toward excellence.
As practical as it is provocative, Educative Assessment furnishes the information needed to design performance-based assessments, craft performance tasks that meet rigorous educational standards, score assessments fairly, and structure and judge student portfolios. It also shows how performance assessment can be used to improve curriculum and instruction, grading and reporting as well as teacher accountability.
\x09In addition, the book includes numerous design templates and flowcharts, strategies of design and troubleshooting, and myriad examples of assessment tasks and scoring rubrics that Wiggins developed and repeatedly refined using feedback from clients in schools, districts, and state department of education.
Following the recommendations for educative assessment mapped out in this book can provide students with authentic tasks that simulate or replicate adult tasks and offer teachers and students useful feedback that can generate stellar classroom performance.

Customer Reviews

Educative Assessment gets ASSESSED
Grant Wiggins has written an excellent book that delves into, not only the ways in which we can change current assessment practices, but he also explores ways in which we can change policies that drive assessment practices. Wiggins explores various assessment techniques that are found outside the realm of traditional assessment. This book is an amazing eye-opener and it is written in a way that is smart and sometimes humorous. If you are looking for a book about education assessment that causes sporatic narcolepsy you are in the wrong place. Buy it. Read it. You won't be disappointed.

great seller
Great seller, got it within the time frame promised. Would buy again