Next Generation Assessment Moving Beyond the Bubble Test to Support 21st Century Learning

Next Generation Assessment: Moving Beyond the Bubble Test to Support 21^st Century Learning provides needed answers to the nation's growing concerns about educational testing in America. Drawing on research and the experiences of leading states and countries, this new book examines how performance assessments can offer a feasible alternative to current high stakes tests. As parents, educators, and policymakers have increasingly criticized the effects of the teaching to the test mandate from the No Child Left Behind Act, the need for this resource has never been more critical.

This summary volume to Beyond the Bubble Test speaks to the nationwide unease about current tests' focus on low-level skills, like recalling and restating facts, rather than higher-order skills such as problem-solving, analyzing, and synthesizing information. It illustrates how schools can use authentic assessments to improve teaching and learning as they involve students in conducting research, designing investigations, developing products and solutions, using technology, and communicating their ideas in many forms. This important book:

• Serves as a must-have resource for those interested in the most current research about how to create valid and reliable performance assessments
• Explains how educators can improve practice by developing, using, and scoring performance assessments
• Helps policymakers and educators accurately assess the benefits and possibilities of adopting performance assessments nationally

If you're an educator, researcher, graduate student, district administrator, or education policy specialist, Next Generation Assessment is an indispensable resource you'll turn to again and again.

LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University and former sponsor of Stanford’s Teacher Education Program. She is also founder and co-director of the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network.

Acknowledgments vi

The Authors vii

1 Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessment Can Support Deeper Learning 1

2 Defining Performance Assessment 15

3 Experiences with Performance Assessment in the United States and Abroad 31

4 How Performance Assessment Can Support Student and Teacher Learning 43

5 Meeting the Challenges of Performance Assessments 57

6 Making High-Quality Assessment Affordable 75

7 Building Systems of Assessment 87

8 Conclusion 107

Notes 113

Index 125

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