Linda Darling-Hammond on Performance-Based Assessment

Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond's winter, 2008 presentation on international practices of performance-based assessment, and how these practices compare with American assessments. Rife with implications for NCLB reform (or better still, abolition).

From the Forum for Education and Democracy's blurb:

What we have thought of as fairly rare in this country [i.e., the USA] is quite common in most of the high-achieving countries internationally, Linda Darling-Hammond began. (See her presentation here.) Beginning with a list of 21st century skills, Darling-Hammond contrasted US tests - which require recall of a simple fact or ask students for a one-sentence explanation - with exams abroad that include designing science experiments, refining computer programs and explaining the reasoning behind solutions for complex problems. [In many nations,] theres a teaching and learning system, that operates to provide rich curriculum and strong outcomes, Darling-Hammond said. They are what assure that the higher-order skills are actually taught and practiced.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Darling-Hammond
• education
• nclb

[viall4diabetes]

You know, if we expect our kids to perform like the kids in Hong Kong, maybe we have to get them to work just as hard. Even showing up for school would be a start. In Chicago, I believe in 2010, the average kid was absent 26 days. Good teachers matter. I was a good teacher, myself. I just didn't have telepathic powers.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

But all those fancy goals should presuppose that students already read fluently, do simple math with confidence, and know basic knowledge about the world and society. Then they segue naturally to doing more sophisticated problems. Otherwise, all these verbal flights are preposterous. structures

[anjiaoshi]

Man. I just got done with a two-and-a-half-month long-term subbing assignment in a rural district, and at the rate they're going, I don't think those kids will ever accomplish ANY of the goals on the list at 3:12. Try to get them to do any of those things, and they revolt. Their creativity and independence are long gone, either beaten out of them or bled away by passive entertainment. They want to be handed answers, repeat them back, get their points and never have to think about the info again.