Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance (Jossey-Bass Education) [Paperback]

Grant Wiggins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0787908487 | ISBN-13: 978-0787908485 | Edition: 1

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.

Editorial Reviews

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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (March 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787908487
• ISBN-13: 978-0787908485
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 0.9 x 11.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Grant Wiggins, EdD, is the President of Authentic Education in Hopewell, New Jersey. He earned his Ed.D. from Harvard University and his B. A. from St. John's College in Annapolis. Grant consults with schools, districts, state and national education departments on a variety of reform matters; organizes conferences and workshops; and
develops print materials and Web resources on curricular change.

Grant is perhaps best known for being the co-author, with Jay McTighe, of Understanding By Design, the award-winning and highly successful program and set of materials on curriculum design; and Schooling by Design. He is also currently a co-author to Pearson Publishing on more than a dozen textbook programs in which UbD is being infused. His work has been supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

Over the past twenty five years, Grant has worked on some of the most influential reform initiatives in the world, including Ted Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools, the International Baccalaureate Program, the Advanced Placement Program; and national school reform efforts in China and Thailand.

Grant is also widely known for his work in assessment reform. He is the author of Educative Assessment and Assessing Student Performance, both published by Jossey-Bass. And he was a lead consultant on many state assessment reform initiatives, such as the portfolio project in Vermont and the performance assessment consortia in New jersey and North Carolina.

His many articles have appeared in such journals as Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan. His work is grounded in 14 years of secondary school teaching and coaching. Grant taught English and electives in philosophy, coached Varsity soccer, Cross Country, JV Baseball, and Track & Field. He also plays in the Hazbins, a rock band. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Educative Assessment gets ASSESSED, May 8, 2008

By 

Blakely C. Pattison - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance (Jossey-Bass Education) (Paperback)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Valuable Resource, January 25, 2011

By 

Simply Sarah - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance (Jossey-Bass Education) (Paperback)

This text was beneficial for me in a few ways. First it explained exactly what assessment is in our public schools today and then it provided several ways to improve the state of assessment in our classrooms. Finally, it discussed and explained different types of assessment, which provided me with many unique tools to use in my own classroom. This is a valuable resource for any classroom teacher or student hoping to teach. I feel I will refer to this text for years to come. I felt a sense of positivity in the book and a desire for change in the world of standardized testing.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book is boring., June 27, 2010

By 

C. Newman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance (Jossey-Bass Education) (Paperback)

I had to buy this book for a class. It is boring and impractical. Even the teacher didn't like it. Some of the theories are good but they are explained in an overly wordy fashion. Most of the examples offered in the book were told from a negative viewpoint that gives the book an overall negative tone. The assessment strategies offered were unrealistic in today's school environment and no particular effort was exerted to explain how any of them could be implemented in a regular public-school classroom.