Assessment Is Essential

Assessment is Essential offers a novel approach for educational assessment courses. Stressing a practical approach that encourages students to think critically about designing the appropriate assessment for a wide range of situations, Green provides students with tools they can use in their future classrooms.

While much research has revealed which assessment practices have the most positive impact on student achievement and instruction, out-of-date, unproductive practices, which students find disengaging and disheartening, still persist. Discover how to use the power of assessment to instill hope, efficacy, and achievement in your students. With this research-based resource, you'll explore six essential tenets of assessment--assessment purpose, communication of assessment results, accurate interpretation, assessment architecture, instructional agility, and student investment--that will help deepen your understanding of assessment to not only meet standards but also enhance students' academic success and self-fulfillment. Benefits Interpret the research-based tenets of assessment that are necessary to maximize all students' learning. Gain advice and strategies for immediately acting on the six essential assessment tenets, including how to communicate assessment results to give feedback that produces constructive responses. Discover why it is vital that assessment practices build students' and teachers' hope, efficacy, and achievement. Consider scenarios that illustrate traditional, outmoded assessment practices and revised scenarios that feature practices that better reflect modern assessment needs. Reflect on questions related to the content of each chapter and study next steps that teaching teams can take. Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Hope, Efficacy, and Achievement Chapter 2: Assessment Purpose Chapter 3: Communication of Assessment Results Chapter 4: Accurate Interpretation Chapter 5: Assessment Architecture Chapter 6: Instructional Agility Chapter 7: Student Investment References Index

A comprehensive expansion to the essential higher education assessment text This second edition of Assessment Essentials updates the bestselling first edition, the go-to resource on outcomes assessment in higher education. In this thoroughly revised edition, you will find, in a familiar framework, nearly all new material, examples from more than 100 campuses, and indispensable descriptions of direct and indirect assessment methods that have helped to educate faculty, staff, and students about assessment. Outcomes assessment is of increasing importance in higher education, especially as new technologies and policy proposals spotlight performance-based success measures. Leading authorities Trudy Banta and Catherine Palomba draw on research, standards, and best practices to address the timeless and timeliest issues in higher education accountability. New topics include: Using electronic portfolios in assessment Rubrics and course-embedded assessment Assessment in student affairs Assessing institutional effectiveness As always, the step-by-step approach of Assessment Essentials will guide you through the process of developing an assessment program, from the research and planning phase to implementation and beyond, with more than 100 examples along the way. Assessment data are increasingly being used to guide everything from funding to hiring to curriculum decisions, and all faculty and staff will need to know how to use them effectively. Perfect for anyone new to the assessment process, as well as for the growing number of assessment professionals, this expanded edition of Assessment Essentials will be an essential resource on every college campus.

This guide shows how to integrate assessment with teaching and learning to reach educational goals. The aim is to present assessment concepts in a concise manner that can be understood and applied by teachers, administrators, and other school personnel. The chapters, organized around major assessment topics, are: (1) "Integrating Assessment with Teaching and Learning"; (2) "Validity"; (3) "Reliability"; (4) "Fairness"; (5) "Understanding and Using Numerical Data"; and (6) "Interpreting and Using National and State Standardized Assessments." (Contains 20 tables, 29 figures, and 36 references.) (SLD)

Showing how to weave assessment into all phases of therapy, this indispensable text and practitioner guide is reader friendly, straightforward, and practical. Specific strategies are provided for evaluating a wide range of clinical issues and concerns with adults, children and adolescents, families, and couples. The authors demonstrate ways to use interviewing and other techniques to understand both individual and relationship functioning, develop sound treatment plans, and monitor progress. Handy mnemonics help beginning family therapists remember what to include in assessments, and numerous case examples illustrate what the assessment principles look like in action with diverse clients. See also the authors' Essential Skills in Family Therapy, Third Edition: From the First Interview to Termination, which addresses all aspects of real-world clinical practice, and Clinician's Guide to Research Methods in Family Therapy.

This practical, real-world approach provides all of the how-tos, what-tos, when-tos, and why-tos you need to master the art and science of assessment in a well-organized, well-illustrated text that makes the material easier to learn now and reference later. The book simplifies the approach to assessment in two ways. First, it focuses on the normal and the normal variants of the adult, child, elderly, and pregnant patients that you’ll see most frequently in practice. Then, when a finding falls outside of those parameters, you’ll be able to identify it as abnormal. Second, assessment is presented as a linear and consistent process; so you are able to undertake the same steps in the same order to ensure that you don’t miss anything.

Lists range from using positive assessment to increase students self-esteem to explaining various forms of assessment.