Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century
Supporting Educational Needs
Valerie Shute and Betsy Becker, editors
Assessment continues to take center stage in contemporary education, not merely for the data themselves, but for what they can tell us about students and their instructors—and even more important, about educational domains that need upgrading. Success in the technology-driven modern world increasingly depends on new competencies (many of which have yet to be fully identified), requiring new methods for their accurate measurement.
Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century asks readers to rethink the way assessment is conducted and competencies are defined, placing the process in the context of lifelong learning across subject domains. This forward-looking dialogue between contributors in education research, practice, and policy examines a range of specific assessment issues, technologies to address these needs, and larger policy concerns. Chapters focus on the most pressing goals and challenges facing the field today, including:
• Using assessment to strengthen learning.
• Recognizing the “natural” role of assessment in everyday life.
• Creating an assessment culture in the schools.
• Improving assessment through evidence-based methods.
• Assessing competencies based in new media and technologies.
• Making assessment relevant to students and faculty.
Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century is a finely detailed blueprint for researchers in education and cognition, as well as for psychometricians in private and government agencies.
In today’s rapidly changing and information-rich world, students are not acquiring adequate knowledge and skills to prepare them for careers in mathematics, science, and technology with the traditional approach to assessment and instruction. New competencies (e.g., information communication and technology skills) are needed to deal successfully with the deluge of data. In order to accomplish this, new "educationally valuable" skills must be acknowledged and assessed. Toward this end, the skills we value and support for a society producing knowledge workers, not simply service workers, must be identified, together with methods for their measurement.
Innovative Assessment for the 21st Century explores the faces of future assessment—and ask hard questions, such as: What would an assessment that captures all of the above attributes look like? Should it be standardized? What is the role of the professional teacher?
Valerie J. Shute
Assessment as the Critical Link Automated Essay Scoring Casual Diagrams Educationally Valuable Skills Evidence-Centered Design Immersive Game Environments Innovative Assessment Learning and Assesment Online Learning Environments learning quality learning and instruction