Teacher educators are encouraged to respond to variations in the needs of individual teachers. To do this, educators need to devise preservice programs which involve development of teacher tasks for individual teachers. Teacher behaviors are observable indications of teachers' abilities to accomplish these tasks. (JN)

Describes efforts to help teachers learn to use new math and reading assessments in their classrooms, highlighting characteristics of professional development that successfully foster change in teachers' ideas and practice. After describing a multi-year staff development/research project on assessment, the paper discusses factors that support and…

Examines the assessment implications of the revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, discussing such challenges as finding valid and reliable ways to assess more complex cognitive processes and to assess metacognitive knowledge. The paper illustrates how the revised Taxonomy can be used to evaluate current approaches to assessment and suggest…

Describes the rise and evolution of educational evaluation, discussing trends in evaluation that have emerged since 1970 and projecting these trends into tentative estimates for 1991-2010. Paradigmatic and methodological shifts in evaluation that have affected today's educational evaluation are examined. (SM)

State and local mandates are important considerations for preservice and inservice teacher education, offering teacher educators a way to provide teachers with global perspectives. The article describes characteristics of mandates in global education and notes that performance-based assessment is effective in preparing teachers to implement global…

Examines the use of portfolios for assessing preservice teachers. The article describes portfolios as an alternative assessment approach, examines the preservice teacher's domains of knowledge and performance that can be assessed by portfolios, and explicates the general features used to operate a portfolio system. (SM)

Recommends improving preservice teacher assessment by providing multiple forms of on-campus laboratory experiences (e.g., microteaching, reflective teaching, simulations) that offer job-related tasks. Performance on the tasks could be assessed at multiple points and for various purposes (selecting preservice teachers and student teachers and…

Discusses how legal issues impinge upon teacher competency testing, describing key legal provisions (antitrust protection, due process, equal protection, substantial adverse impact, and business necessity), and examining each one's impact on testing and teacher certification. Recommendations to help teacher educators ensure legal, credible, and…

Discusses research on teachers' perceptions about the use of student assessment in instruction and the extent to which teachers have received any preservice or inservice training in assessment. The article presents teachers' responses to a questionnaire requesting information on test use and assessment background. (SM)

Considers the need for and status of assessment literacy for teachers. The article examines whether teachers need to assess, whether there are preservice assessment courses, what assessment courses should teach, what topics are covered in other courses, what is happening with assessment in the schools, and what is needed. (SM)