Classroom Assessment

Classroom Assessment: Concepts and Applications views classroom assessment as an everyday, ongoing part of teaching, integral to everything that happens in the classroom. The text is organized to follow the natural progression of teacher decision making, from organizing the class as a learning community to planning and conducting instruction to the formal evaluation of learning and, finally, to grading. Classroom Assessment presents complex concepts clearly so that pre-service teachers can understand them, and solidly grounds these concepts in best practice through practical, well-integrated examples. The text conceives of classroom assessment in a broader way than many other texts. It focuses not only on the assessment needs of testing, grading, interpreting standardized tests, and performance assessments but also on assessment concerns in organizing a classroom at the start of school, planning and implementing instruction, and strategies of teacher self reflection.

Classroom Assessment: Concepts and Applications views classroom assessment as an everyday, ongoing part of teaching, integral to everything that happens in the classroom. The text is organized to follow the natural progression of teacher decision making, from organizing the class as a learning community to planning and conducting instruction to the formal evaluation of learning and, finally, to grading. Classroom Assessment presents complex concepts clearly so that pre-service teachers can understand them, and solidly grounds these concepts in best practice through practical, well-integrated examples. The text conceives of classroom assessment in a broader way than many other texts. It focuses not only on the assessment needs of testing, grading, interpreting standardized tests, and performance assessments but also on assessment concerns in organizing a classroom at the start of school, planning and implementing instruction, and strategies of teacher self reflection.

Peter W. Airasian is Professor of Education at Boston College, where he is Chair of the Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation Program. His main teaching responsibilities are instructing pre- and in-service teachers in classroom assessment strategies. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, with a concentration in testing, evaluation, and assessment. He is a former high school chemistry and biology teacher. He has authored numerous books on assessment, including of Minimal Competency Testing (1979), School Effectiveness: A Reassessment of the Evidence (1980), The Effects of Standardized Testing (1982), Teacher Evaluation Toolkit (1997), Assessment in the Classroom (1997 and 2000), and Classroom Assessment (1991, 1994, 1997, and 2001)). He is a past Chair of the American Educational Research Association’s Special Interest Group on Classroom Assessment. Currently, he is continuing his study of the role of assessments in classrooms and examining issues related to the evaluation of teachers.

Michael Russell is Associate Professor of Education at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education where he directs the Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative. His research and teaching interests lay at the intersection of assessment and technology. He teaches classroom assessment for pre-service students and courses that focus on issues in testing, assessment, and evaluation to graduate students. He has conducted several studies that focus on the use of computer-based technologies to increase test validity. These research issues include computers and writing, computer-based test accommodations for students with special needs, developing diagnostic tests for teachers to use in the classroom, and improving the instructional utility of large-scale tests. He is author of Technology and Assessment: the Tale of Two Interpretations.