Series in Assessment
Books in Assessment
Getting Started with Teacher Clarity
Help elementary school students engage in the learning process and achieve their goals in the classroom with this effective & proven teaching method. Clear communication between students and teachers is crucial for effective learning. When students understand the why and how of learning (a.k.a. “teacher clarity”), it’s so much easier for them to fully engage with the process and achieve their goals. This book details the benefits that clear communication can have in elementary classroom, from breaking down the basics of teacher clarity and shared learning progressions to providing classroom-ready activities. Plus, you’ll discover suggestions for effective classroom teaching practices, including: Deconstructing state standards to develop learning intentions and objectives Developing success criteria to support new learning Building student awareness through structured language talk Embedding self-assessment checks for students to assess their levels of understanding throughout a lesson And much more Through the research-based methods of teacher clarity, educators will understand the importance of partnership between students and teachers, which in turn fosters improved student success.
School of Dreams
The pressure to succeed in our nation's most competitive public high schools is often crushing. Striving to understand this insular world, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes spent a year at California's Whitney High, a school so renowned that parents move across town-and across the world-hoping to enroll their children. That's because schools like Whitney deliver everything parents want: love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores that pave the way to elite universities. Attending such a school, of course, carries its own toll: High-achieving, pressured kids survive on espresso and four hours' sleep a night, falling into despair if they get a B. Lively, personal, and very readable, School of Dreams uncovers what works-and what doesn't-at this model high school, offering parents, students, and teachers some powerful messages about public education today.
The Way We Were?: The Myths and Realities of America's Student Achievement
According to conventional wisdom, American public schools have suffered a terrible decline and are in need of dramatic reform. Today's high school students, it is alleged, display an ignorance of things that every elementary student knew a generation ago. American business leaders warn that rising illiteracy and "innumeracy" threaten our competitiveness in the global marketplace. Political scientists worry that poor schooling is undermining the very foundations of our democracy as American adults exercise their citizenship on the basis of dumbed-down sound-bites. But are things really that bad? What evidence are these criticisms based on, and does it hold up under examination? In this book, Richard Rothstein analyzes the statistical and anecdotal evidence and shows that public schools, by and large, are not falling down on the job of educating our children. To the contrary, by many measures they are doing better than in the past. Minority students have improved their test scores significantly, and overall dropout rates have fallen. Moreover, our schools educate more poor children, and more children whose native language is foreign, than ever before. Further improvement in American education, Rothstein argues, should be based on an accurate appraisal of strengths and weaknesses rather than on exaggeration. Rothstein shows in convincing detail how standardized tests comparing American students' performance today with that of the past, and with student performance internationally, frequently confuse apples with oranges. The nation's student population today is very different from that of decades ago and from the student population in other nations. As critics of public education promote private alternatives and politicians debate the value of standardized national testing, The Way We Were? is especially timely.