Changing the Way We Grade Student Performance: Classroom Assessment and the New Learning Paradigm

Assigning grades to student work raises many dilemmas for college and university teachers. This volume helps teachers deal with these dilemmas by providing rubrics to be used as guides for scoring various kinds of student performance. The authors offer a range of alternative approaches to assessing student performance that are rooted in the belief that students should be active rather than passive learners.They draw on their own classroom experience to explain how to use each assessment measure presented--including developing criteria, integrating peer and self-assessment, and assigning grades--and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. This is the 74th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 1. Why Talk About Different Ways to Grade? The Shift from Traditional Assessment to Alternative Assessment(Rebecca S. Anderson)
2. Unveiling Some of the Mystery of Professional Judgment in Classroom Assessment(Bruce W. Speck)
3. Grading Classroom Participation(John C. Bean, Dean Peterson)
4. Designing and Grading Oral Communication Assignments(Brooke L. Quigley)
5. Designing and Grading Written Assignments(Eric H. Hobson)
6. Grading Cooperative Projects(Karl A. Smith)
7. Evaluating Technology-Based Processes and Products(Gary R. Morrison, Steven M. Ross)
8. Portfolios: Purposeful Collections of Student Work(Joan A. Mullin)
9. Grading Inquiry Projects(Beverly Busching)
10. Grading Student Performance in Real-World Settings(Patricia A. Scanlon, Michael P. Ford)
REBECCA S. ANDERSON is codirector of the Memphis Urban Writing Institute and assistant professor at the University of Memphis. BRUCE W. SPECK is professor of English and acting director of the Center for Academic Excellence at the University of Memphis. Assigning grades to student work raises many dilemmas for college and university teachers. This volume helps teachers deal with these dilemmas by providing rubrics to be used as guides for scoring various kinds of student performance. The authors offer a range of alternative approaches to assessing student performance that are rooted in the belief that students should be active rather than passive learners. They draw on their own classroom experience to explain how to use each assessment measure presented—including developing criteria, integrating peer and self-assessment, and assigning grades—and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. This is the 74th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Teaching and Learning. For more information on the series, please see the Journals and Periodicals section. Assigning grades to student work raises many dilemmas for college and university teachers. This volume helps teachers deal with these dilemmas by providing rubrics to be used as guides for scoring various kinds of student performance. The authors offer a range of alternative approaches to assessing student performance that are rooted in the belief that students should be active rather than passive learners. They draw on their own classroom experience to explain how to use each assessment measure presented—including developing criteria, integrating peer and self-assessment, and assigning grades—and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. This is the 74th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Teaching and Learning. For more information on the series, please see the Journals and Periodicals section.