Testing for Learning

by Ruth Mitchell

Overview

Arguing that traditional, test-based evaluation has a negative effect on many students, this book describes new methods of assessing student performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416576877
Publisher:	Free Press
Publication date:	09/12/2007
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Ruth Mitchell, Associate Director of the Council for Basic Education, formerly taught writing a U.C.L.A. She is the author of numerous articles on educational issues.

Editorial Reviews

Critics of multiple-choice tests have acquired some media attention recently, especially since a Virginia doctor, John J. Cannell, published a pamphlet on nationally normed elementary achievement testing and ``how all 50 states are above the national average.'' Here Mitchell, associate director of the Council for Basic Education, accuses mechanically scored multiple-choice tests of trivializing teaching and learning. Instead of thinking and producing, she asserts, students learn to passively regurgitate capsules of information. The author wishes to give the authority for assessing student performance back to teachers. Despite a weak argument defending the cost of performance assessment against standardized tests, her ideas are well thought out and convincingly presented. For general education collections.-- Arla Lindgren, St. John's Univ., Jamaica, N.Y.

Library Journal