Customer Reviews

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses: Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning

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

 

 

As a faculty developer and instructional designer I am constantly on the lookout for good resources. Every once in a while, a jewel turns up. I must say that this is a pure jewel. I have had my copy for about six eeks and have read it once and am in the process of rereading it a second time.

For faculty who really want a good understanding of student-centered instruction as well as assessment, I higly recommend this book.

It is replete with examples and the section on developing and using rubrics is exceptional.

I consider this book a must have for faculty member's professional library.

Jim

I got this book after reading the reviews posted here, and found it rather disappointing. First, the authors have taken from Grant Wiggins the idea that 'authentic assessment' should include assignments that test 'real-world' skills and interpreted it *very* literally; as a result you will find many examples here from soil science, forestry and engineering, but almost nothing at all from the humanities (I teach history and found no applicable examples). Combined with this is an implicit argument that the point of education is preprofessional training; the authors embrace the idea that the student is a consumer purchasing a skill set from teacher-salesmen. On top of that, it's very clumsily written. I found this a narrow and discouraging view of student-centered learning, which at its best not only applies well to the humanities, but offers a wider perspective on the 'preprofessional' as well: missing here are the ideas of generating essential questions, any discussion of how to incorporate those into syllabus design, or a coherent bigger picture in which engaging assignments that duplicate 'real-world' work are fitted into a learning trajectory. There is, however, a fair amount of discussion of the practice of assessment techniques such as the portfolio etc., but this can also be found in books that apply to a wider range of educational topics. Readers, esp. those from the humanities, interested in learner-centered assessment *and teaching* would be better served by going straight to Wiggins instead of reading the excerpted and narrower version of his arguments presented here.

Huba and Freed bridge the gap between assessment and student-centered teaching and learning. Throughout the text the authors include reflection questions to trigger thinking and changes in mental models. While the thrust of the book is conceptual, there are many practical suggestions for implementation in areas such as learning outcomes, rubrics, and other related areas of assessment. While compatible with other treatments of assessment, this is a unique perspective.

I had to buy it for my Educational Evaluation class. It is very boring to read. It is stuffed with annoying quotes, and repeats the same thing over and over.
Very few examples of how to shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered method of teaching...

This book provides extensive information about using online environments in the classroom. It details implementations that worked, and implementations that didn't work to show how to implement online enviornments to best benefit students.

Very useful for dealing with changing requirements for college level teachers. The book helps conceptualize the differences between assessing knowledge and assessing learning. A good tool for everyone's toolbox.

I would like to start off by saying that giving this book a rating of 1 star technically means I felt as though it actually had 'some' value(which is untrue). This book showcases exactly what is wrong with our educational system and why it has become the way it is today. First, it is filled cover-to-cover with gobs of nonsensical drivel and psychobabble that makes it impossible to apply to any real-life scenario. I have no idea if there was a page quota for this book but it could have been boiled down to an easily accessible pamphlet, as opposed to a 286 page monstrosity. The main focus of the book is lost multiple times and the reader is left pondering whether the authors actually understand the material or if they actually intended for it to be used at all. Proven case studies are virtually non existent and you are left filtering through what is assumed to be the authors' own personal opinions/assumptions on the various topics. Overall, this book does not encapsulate on any ideas nor does it provide any insight on how to improve upon current teaching methods. Moreover, This book is a failure and at the cost of the readers time and money. I sincerely hope they review their approach to such an insoluble topic.