In an important article in Education Week, Willis D. Hawley and Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, explain why students’ cultural identities are integral to “measuring” teacher effectiveness.
As it stands now, student achievement test scores are being used as the measure of teacher effectiveness in terms of the value added measure (VAM). VAM is a data driven measurement that is totally based on changes in test scores from one year to the next for an individual teacher.… Read more
High stakes testing should not be used to make significant decisions about student performance (achievement in a course, passing a course, being promoted, graduating) and should be banned. In this post we explore formative assessment methods, and show how teachers to make decisions and judgments about student achievement should use a combination of formative and summative assessments.
Some would argue that we don’t have the science right to make such a decision.… Read more
The Art of Teaching Science is the personal blog of Jack Hassard. I am a writer, a former high school science teacher and Professor Emeritus of Science Education, Georgia State University. The blog reflects my opinions on science education and issues related to educational reform from a progressive science and education philosophy.
