Customer Reviews

The High Performance Toolbox: Succeeding with Performance Tasks, Projects and Assessments

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The HIGH PERFORMANCE TOOLBOX demystifies performance assessment and performance learning. It is designed for the teacher who wants high-level AUTHENTIC performance. Forged from the best research on teaching and learning, these are real and teacher-friendly TOOLS which, beyond talking about theory, can be used actually to BUILD a high performance learning environment and curriculum. A must for all builders of tomorrow's classrooms and minds!

As a middle/high school teacher of 20+ years I now have a resource to help guide me in developing my student projects. This resource is filled with helpful designers, planners, rubrics, and examples of each to help educators design quality student performances. Chapter 5 has helped me the most by showing me a quick and easy performance designer that has produced quality results in my classroom. I use the other chapters as references when I need help with rubrics or planning. Curriculum coordinators and staff developers should love this resource as well.

I highly reccommend this book to any educator at any level to help them develop quality performances and rubrics. Thank you Spence and Shari!

Spence Rogers and Shari Graham have put together an excellent book that is teacher friendly. The High Performance Toolbox is a practical guide that assists teachers in creating multiple assessments for their students. I have used the Performance Toolbox for years especially for assistance in creating interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary lessons and projects. I will continue to refer to this book for planning purposes because it is a real time saver. The bottom line is that High Performance Toolbox is an outstanding reference for all teachers concerned with student success. Two thumbs up for Spence and Shari.

As a New York teacher of 20 years, I was finding it more difficult to get quality work out of my students. I kept seeing fluff from them,and I was frustrated. Then I read High Performance Toolbox. I was then able to design projects for the classroom with a clear set of criteria for both the student and I. We then set our course for quality work! Since then I have used the guidelines offered in the book, and have been immensely impressed with the QUALITY work from my students. This is not a book that can be read in a fortnight and be expected to meet the student's needs. One must delve into this with a right attitude, and clear understanding of the philosophy behind the message. But once you have implemented these tools, you will be amazed at the performance of your students! A must for any young professional!

It is everything I expected and much more. As educator and homeschool parent, it opens a new world to effective and efficient learning. Love the appendices where you can extend the ideas presented there. It is not imaginable how many tasks you can create by simply following the templates within the book.

Nice tool (sorry for the pun) to have in your professional library. Lot's of good ideas, templates, and strategies.

This book provides numerous assessment tools for every occasion, and gives clear information on how and when to use them.

The High Performance tool Box is an practical, easy to read, hands-on book for the educator. The information provided in the book is common sense materials that require very limited funds to implement that result in immediate positive and visible results that can be doucmented for student success both at the classroom room and at the district level.

Spence Rogers and Shari Graham have put together an excellent book that is teacher friendly. The High Performance Toolbox is a practical guide that assists teachers in creating multiple assessments for their students. I have used the Performance Toolbox for years especially for assistance in creating interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary lessons and projects. I will continue to refer to this book for planning purposes because it is a real time saver. The bottom line is that High Performance Toolbox is an outstanding reference for all teachers concerned with student success. Two thumbs up for Spence and Shari.

As an Integration Specialist, I assist teachers with designing classroom projects that are aligned with the New York State Standards. We use a format called a Learning Experience Outline. This format contains all the components of a multidisciplinary project: the NYS Standards and performance indicators being addressed; the learning activities the students will be engaged in; classroom management options; a collaborative component with other teachers and the multimedia specialist; modifications and/or enrichment activities being used; technological support that will be needed; teaching and learning strategies that will be used; and assessment strategies. However, when we asked ourselves, are we really assessing what we are teaching? We found we were not. The High Performance Toolbox has become a valuable resource for aligning our projects and the, ever important, assessment pieces. The practical application strategies in Chapter 6 have given us the understanding and tools we needed to accomplish this alignment. We have also discovered the "power of rubrics." We learned that a rubric is used whenever Quality needs to be consistently judged or attained. Students actually enjoy developing their own rubrics. Learning to develop rubrics by using examples of student work has had a powerful, positive, impact on student achievement. By using the 8 step process in the "toolbox" (pages 222-224) students identify the characteristics that distinguish different levels of work in a given product, performance or process. In other words, "mystery learning is eliminated!" By understanding what is expected in their assignments, students' achievement increases. The project approach is a great way to engage students in the learning process. Nevertheless, as teachers we need to make sure projects are aligned with the standards, the core curriculum and meeting our goals and objectives. Thanks Spence and Shari for designing a usable tool.