A follow-up to the ACTFL Integrated Performance Assessment Manual published in 2003. This book provides readers with expanded guidelines for how to design IPA tasks to informthe backward design of a unit. Suggestions on how to provide effective feedback and howto improve learner performance are shared. Also included is a re-conceptualized rubricfor the interpretive mode and the addition of IPA rubrics for Advanced-level languageperformance.

This edited book brings together fifteen original empirical studies from a variety of international contexts to provide a detailed exploration of language assessment, testing and evaluation. Language assessment has a key role in the development and implementation of language and educational policies at the national level, and this book examines some of the impacts - both positive and negative - of different skills testing and examination approaches on learning outcomes and individual students' language learning. This book will be of interest to scholars working in applied linguistics and language education, teacher training, testing and evaluation, as well as stakeholders such as practitioners, educators, educational agencies, and test developers.

As the commitment to performance assessments as a strategy of reform has increased across the nation, so has the controversy surrounding the purposes, development, implementation, and effects of alternative forms of assessment. One of the first of its kind, this edited volume provides an incisive and comprehensive account of the issues pertaining to performance assessments. The 10 papers comprising the volume were originally written to establish a conceptual framework for a three-year U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement sponsored national study of performance assessments. Written by leading experts in the field, the papers explicate the central issues regarding the development, implementation, and utility of performance assessments. The topics covered by the papers include: * a discussion of contemporary as well as historical events in the performance assessment movement; * technical characteristics of performance assessments, including reliability, validity, generalizability, and calibration; * conceptualization and calculation of the costs of performance assessments; * the implications of performance assessments on students who have traditionally done less well in American schools, including racial and linguistic minorities; * the fit between performance assessments and organizational change in education; and * the utilization of performance assessment as an instrument of state policy. Readers will find the policy and technical issues covered in this volume to be useful from a variety of academic, research, and policy perspectives including conceptualizing and implementing performance assessments.

Created at the Center for Collaborative Education, this is a practical guide for implementing performance assessments in schools and school districts. It includes extensive tools and assessments aligned with the Common Core. The guide is spiral bound for use by teachers and teams of educators. It offers full discussion of issues pertaining to performance assessment.

Linking various disciplines and management functions, Integrated Performance Management provides the reader with a concrete framework to manage organizations successfully. The authors do not isolate a single strategy to manage performance. Instead, the book focuses on a range of strategies providing the reader with an introduction to each one. The concepts under analysis were developed through intense dialogue with business managers. While maintaining academic rigour, Integrated Performance Management presents ideas that students will find relevant outside of the classroom. Postgraduate and MBA students in a range of areas including strategy, accounting, finance, operations management, marketing, leadership and human resource management will find this book useful.

The social sector provides services to a wide range of people throughout the world with the aim of creating social value. While doing good is great, doing it well is even better. These organizations, whether nonprofit, for-profit, or public, increasingly need to demonstrate that their efforts are making a positive impact on the world, especially as competition for funding and other scarce resources increases. This heightened focus on impact is positive: learning whether we are making a difference enhances our ability to address pressing social problems effectively and is critical to wise stewardship of resources. Yet demonstrating efficacy remains a big hurdle for most organizations. The Goldilocks Challenge provides a parsimonious framework for measuring the strategies and impact of social sector organizations. A good data strategy starts first with a sound theory of change that helps organizations decide what elements they should monitor and measure. With a theory of change providing solid underpinning, the Goldilocks framework then puts forward four key principles, the CART principles: Credible data that are high quality and analyzed appropriately, Actionable data will actually influence future decisions; Responsible data create more benefits than costs; and Transportable data build knowledge that can be used in the future and by others. Mary Kay Gugerty and Dean Karlan combine their extensive experience working with nonprofits, for-profits and government with their understanding of measuring effectiveness in this insightful guide to thinking about and implementing evidence-based change. This book is an invaluable asset for nonprofit, social enterprise and government leaders, managers, and funders-including anyone considering making a charitable contribution to a nonprofit-to ensure that these organizations get it "just right" by knowing what data to collect, how to collect it, how it can be analyzed, and drawing implications from the analysis. Everyone who wants to make positive change should focus on the top priority: using data to learn, innovate, and improve program implementation over time. Gugerty and Karlan show how.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language TM (TOEFL®) is used by more universities worldwide than any other test to assess English language proficiency for academic admission and placement decisions, and to guide English language instruction. This landmark volume provides a detailed description and analysis of Educational Testing Service’s research and development efforts to develop a major revision of the TOEFL® test. The result is a book that serves as a case study of test design drawing upon theory in the complex domain of English language proficiency while attempting to meet standards of educational measurement. Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a Foreign LanguageTM is distinctive in its attempt to develop a coherent story of the rationale for a test or its revision, explain the research and development process, and provide the results of the validation process. Through its treatment of one test, it expands on and tests principles and approaches to educational measurement, providing an in-depth, integrated perspective on the overall process of test revision. Moreover, because the conceptual foundation and history are presented alongside the empirical studies and validity argument, these sometimes disparate areas are presented in a way that demonstrates their connections – an approach which represents a departure from, or extension of, conventional materials on test revision. This volume is particularly relevant for professionals and graduate students in educational measurement, applied linguistics, and second language acquisition as well as anyone interested in assessment issues.

"This practical guide shows how notebooks can become a tangible record of students' emerging understanding of and proficiency in science. Students can use their notebooks to pose questions, write down observations, work through puzzling data, or think through new ideas. Teachers can use them to ascertain each student's strengths and challenges in participating in the academic work of science. The book explains how to kick off a notebooking practice and offers ways to help students learn to organize information while also preserving their own voices and choices. The book also discusses lessons, instructional routines, and assessment techniques that pair well with science notebooks"--

Linking various disciplines and management functions, Integrated Performance Management provides the reader with a concrete framework to manage organizations successfully. The authors do not isolate a single strategy to manage performance. Instead, the book focuses on a range of strategies providing the reader with an introduction to each one. The concepts under analysis were developed through intense dialogue with business managers. While maintaining academic rigour, Integrated Performance Management presents ideas that students will find relevant outside of the classroom. Postgraduate and MBA students in a range of areas including strategy, accounting, finance, operations management, marketing, leadership and human resource management will find this book useful.

Students continually ask, "Does this count?" "Is this on the test?" They want to know how they'll be evaluated. Discover how to answer these questions in ways that shape student learning and keep teaching focused on what really matters. Written by language expert Paul Sandrock, this superb manual clarifies precisely what language educators need to understand in order to successfully assess student performance. Relevant to new teachers and seasoned professionals alike, Sandrock provides step-by-step guidance on how to design assessments, illuminates the process of designing rubrics that focus on proficiency and helps educators create assessments that motivate students to offer language samples that accomplish authentic purposes. School administrators will also benefit from the section that focuses on the impact of performance assessment on instruction and program design.