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Easley, Shirley-Dale & Mitchell, Kay (2000)
Portfolios Matter: What, Where, When, Why and How to Use Them.
Markham, Ontario: Pembroke
Publishers, distributed by Stenhouse.
After reaching a point in their professional lives when they
questioned their current assessment practices as elementary school
teachers, Shirley-Dale Easley and Kay Mitchell began to explore the use
of portfolio assessment as a means to evaluate students’ work. In
their practical, how-to book entitled Portfolios Matter: What,
Where, When, Why and How to Use Them, they offer “research-based,
classroom tested, and practical answers based on years of studying”
portfolios. The information shared in the book comes from years of
testing portfolio assessment in their own classes and from
conversations with other teachers during numerous professional
development workshops. Each chapter begins with a passage that appears
to have come from the authors’ personal journals that they kept while
teaching. In addition, each chapter is sprinkled with samples of
students’ work, frequently asked questions about portfolio assessment,
and quick tips that teachers can follow to implement portfolios.
In the first chapter the authors establish the rationale for
portfolio assessment and expound on its benefits. The authors advocate
a balanced approach as the best way to determine a student’s abilities.
For example, teachers often define quality in different ways as
evidenced by discrepancies in their grading. One teacher may give a
student a high grade for work while another may consider the work to be
somewhat lacking. Portfolios allow teachers to see larger amounts of
work over time. Furthermore, traditional and authentic forms of
assessment are useful for the classroom teacher. Using various
assessment tools, such as observations, teacher-made instruments,
standardized tests and portfolios, allow the teacher to portray the
student’s abilities more accurately. Portfolios provide concrete
evidence of learning and are “the only assessment tool whereby the
students and teacher act as partners in the assessment process” (p.
20). When students work with teachers, they take greater ownership for
their own learning and become self-directed learners. This makes
students active participants in the assessment process by guiding them
to set goals for themselves and to measure their progress in reaching
those goals.
The second chapter lays the groundwork for establishing portfolio
assessment in the class. The authors state that not all teachers in
the school have to implement portfolios at the same time. Teachers
should begin when they are ready. If only one teacher decides to use
portfolios, then she should seek out other support systems to help her
during the transitional period. It is also important in the beginning
to collect samples of students’ work or “baseline samples,” which
should not be revised or corrected. Teachers, and not students, should
select the baseline samples, since students early in the school year
are unfamiliar with the evaluation procedures. As the year progresses,
the teacher will teach the students how to self evaluate by showing
them exemplars and discussing the range of quality in the exemplars.
Throughout the conversations, the class will construct “criteria
charts,” which contain a list of characteristics of quality work. When
students become more knowledgeable about the subject, they can
periodically revise or update the criteria charts.
Easley and Mitchell address potential portfolio problems in the
chapter entitled, “Developing Your Portfolio Program. Here, the
authors clarify two often confused yet related concepts: portfolios
and work files. A portfolio differs from a work file because
portfolios require student to evaluate their own work. The portfolio
is “an evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching that occurred in the
classroom. It is the summative assessment for both the teacher and the
student” (p. 33). Then, the authors differentiate between working and
cumulative portfolios. A working portfolio is a collection of work
over a longer period of time while the cumulative portfolio contains
the students’ best work. As the chapter progresses, the authors focus
on practical issues, such contents, storage and time issues. The
portfolio should contain baseline samples as well as materials that are
collected during each grading period with the idea of portfolio
assessment being introduced to the students at the end of the first
grading period. Students will need to practice the process several
times to master the concept of portfolio assessment. The authors
provide detailed, step-by-step instructions for selecting portfolio
samples and for reflecting on the samples. Although many teachers
claim to have little time for portfolio assessment, the authors contend
that a well-established system requires some ongoing maintenance but
little time. Also, middle and high school teachers who work with large
numbers of students can implement portfolios if they focus on one
subject or use them as diagnostic tools for special populations of
students.
In the fourth chapter the authors tackle the most frequently asked
question about portfolios, “What goes in a portfolio?” (p. 53). Easely
and Mitchell claim that the teacher decides the number and kind of
samples that are placed in the portfolio. The teacher has flexibility
in terms of the “quality and quantity of the contents placed in the
portfolio” (p. 55). These decisions are based on the student’s age,
the curriculum, and the focus of the course. The authors suggest that
teachers consider the educational level (kindergarten, elementary
school, and upper level) as well as the area of focus (writing, math,
cross-curricular and content-specific).
Once the student has created the portfolio, “it is a natural
progression to move toward a conference format” (p. 68). The sixth
chapter is devoted to the procedures for sharing the portfolio through
conferences. For the student-led conference to be successful, the
student must prepare her portfolio and be able to articulate the
learning that occurred during the year. In addition, the parents
should be informed about the rationale, the process, and the
expectations for the conference. This information can be communicated
to parents through a series of newsletters during the school year. In
this chapter the authors provide step-by-step procedures for conducting
the conferences. The suggestions include the times when a conference
should be held, the numerous approaches that are possible, and the
checklists that should be followed to prepare for and conduct a
conference. The authors discuss the advantages and limitations for the
three types of conferences: traditional, two-way, and three-way.
Easley and Mitchell suggest that changes in education are
inevitable and that educators frequently face new ideas to try. To
deal with the new initiatives, the authors propose the Life-Long
Learner Model in the last chapter. The model consists of five parts:
introducing the new idea, instilling new knowledge, developing a belief
in the new idea, committing to the idea’s success and seeking out
support. Educators are encouraged to follow these steps when
implementing portfolios for the first time.
Shirley-Dale Easley and Kay Mitchell have written a concise,
teacher-friendly book on portfolio assessment. The authors provide a
nice balance of procedures and concrete examples for implementing
portfolios. The level of detail and practicality make this book
different from others in the field. Teachers at all grade levels and
in all subject areas will find the book helpful as they begin
implementing this alternative form of assessment.
Pages: 96
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 1-55138-151-6
Reviewed by Nathan Bond, Southwest Texas State University
Holliday, Adrian (2001)
Doing and Writing Qualitative Research.
London: Sage
Publications.
Doing and Writing Qualitative Research answers the
questions that plague students, college professors, and practitioners
alike as they begin the process of qualitative research. How is
qualitative research planned, organized and structured? What guiding
principles should be followed in this process? How does the writing
process fit into the qualitative research process?
This book demonstrates how to write qualitative research
within context of doing qualitative research. It addresses the
practical problems that writers face in attempting to transfer the rich
data collected in the field into a written product with step-by-step
instructions that link the principles of qualitative research to the
structure and conventions of the written language. Examples and
illustrations from research studies conducted within various fields and
professions reinforce specific concepts and add depth and interest to
the content.
The primary focus of the book is a description of a methodology
to be used in qualitative research. The author maintains that the
writing process itself aids in organization, analysis, and conclusions.
The writing process is also useful in overcoming the common pitfalls of
subjectivity and scientific rigor. This is achieved within the writing
process by making the workings of the written study transparent. In
order to maintain validity, the qualitative researcher must "show their
work" every single time in much the same way that an algebra student
provides proof that the correct answer has been determined. (p.8).
Revealing the infrastructure of the research to the audience increases
accountability and maintains rigorous methodology.
The ideology expressed in the book is born out of the author's
experiences supervising qualitative research writing in research
methodology classes as well as the author's personal research
experiences. Within this ideology there is "a place for powerful,
personal authorship" (p. 128) that is seldom seen in today's research.
The idea of personal authorship embraces the use of first person in
relating experiences or explaining the author's perspective and/or
ideology as well as asserting the author's presence in the headings
that are chosen. This personal authorship acts as an acknowledgement
of the role the writer has within the research: an interactive and
ideological force that imparts the relationships between the researcher
and the study itself. It also serves to reduce abstractness by
bringing out the voice of the writer. The author ascribes this new
thinking to the progressive, postmodern, critical branch with the
naturalist, post-positivistic tradition (see p. 20).
The book is structured in eight chapters that lead the reader
from the philosophical basis for qualitative research through the
formulation of topic, research questions, and research settings, to the
use of data and writing conventions in presenting the final product.
Discussion questions at the end of the book help the reader apply the
principles presented in each chapter to their own research experience.
Philosophically, qualitative research is seen as "a social activity,
which is as ideological and complex as those it studies (p. 1)." The
balance between the research strategy and the research setting is
central to qualitative research. The researcher must maintain the
freedom to creatively explore the context while carefully accounting
for each move made, "taking the opportunity to encounter the research
setting while maintaining the principles of social science". Holliday
makes comparisons between quantitative and qualitative philosophies
emphasizing the control of variables and the testing of hypotheses.
Quantitative research attempts to control variables, while qualitative
research invites a rich array of variables and investigates them
directly. Qualitative research invites exploration rather than the
validation of quantitative research, "producing, rather than testing
hypotheses is more often the outcome of qualitative research" (p. 35).
The connection between data and the social setting from which
it is derived is important. In fact, collecting qualitative data most
often develops a dialogue within a social setting. Thick description
reveals all aspects of the research experience - both intentions and
meanings of the data. Data should not be viewed as exhaustive, but
representative of the different facets of the social context paired
with good analysis. In this way data becomes the evidence and writing
becomes the presentation and discussion of that evidence. Raw data
cannot be left as is - it must be reorganized and a writing strategy
developed that will allow a shift to occur between making sense of what
is encountered in the field and making sense of the total research
experience to the reader. This is accomplished through the skillful
use of writing conventions that convey the intended message while
increasing the credibility of the research. The author feels that is
can be counterproductive to convey long stretches of data without a
discussion of its significance. Readers may miss the point and
misinterpret the data. Halliday discusses in detail such useful
qualitative writing strategies as conceptual frameworks, coding,
referenced themes, and triangulation.
Finally, the author broaches the serious and sensitive area of
the relationship between the researcher and the participant. This is
linked to the former theme of personal authorship. Any form of
researcher presence is considered contamination in quantitative
research, yet within qualitative research this presence creates a new
third culture of interaction between the researcher and the
participant. This culture is generated as each side observes and over-
generalizes from the behavior of the other. It becomes essential that
the researcher make appropriate claims about the people in the research
setting. "Appropriate claims is not simply a matter of technical
accuracy, but of creating images of the people we research which
promotes understanding of their humanity and do not reduce and package
them" (p 175).
Doing and Writing Qualitative Research encompasses both
technical and academic aspects of qualitative research. It details the
technical construction of qualitative research writing while making
reference to the broader academic discussions and literature. This
book is useful as a research text or as a user-friendly guide for
anyone involved in the qualitative research process.
Pages: 224
Price: $32.95 (paper) $98.95 (hardcover)
ISBN: 0-76196-392-8 (paper) 0-76196-391-X (hardcover)
Reviewed by Lori Snyder Blaylock, Texas A&M - Commerce
Muschla, Gary Robert (2003)
Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons & Activities: 10th Grade
Level.
San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.
High school language arts teachers and reading specialists looking
for activities to supplement their instruction and prepare 10th grade
students for standardized reading tests will find this extensive
collection a treasure-trove. It contains 40 study sheets, 100
worksheets, and 11 practice tests divided into five sections:
analogies, vocabulary, reading comprehension, language mechanics and
word usage, and language expression.
In addition, an appendix provides information about standardized tests
for parents and test-taking tips for students.
Although the title says “lessons,” educators expecting to find
lesson plans will be disappointed. They will find only suggestions for
introducing the concept or skill at the beginning of each section and
recommended strategies for using the study sheets and worksheets that
follow. The study sheets are clear, concise, and arranged sequentially.
They can be used by the teacher to guide instruction or by the student
to review basic concepts. The practice tests follow standardized test
format and cover material reinforced by the worksheets. An answer key
is provided for each practice test. Despite the lack of full lesson
plans the total package is a valuable resource for education
collections and a useful tool for instructors who want to provide
review and practice for 10th grade students over content common to
standardized reading tests. Other titles by Muschla in the TestPrep
Curriculum Activities Library include Ready-to-Use Reading
Proficiency Lessons & Activities : 4th Grade Level and Ready-to-
Use Reading Proficiency Lessons & Activities: 8th Grade Level.
Pages: 379
Price: $32.95
ISBN: 0-7879-6587-1
Reviewed by Judy Druse, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas
Newkirk, Thomas (2002)
Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Thomas Newkirk, author of numerous books on writing and professor
of English at University of New Hampshire, has joined a small, but
growing number of authors addressing our understanding of how boys
learn and how they are taught in our elementary and secondary schools.
After decades of attention to girls’ and women’s education, educators
and researchers are beginning to turn their attention to what has been
happening to the education of boys.
Newkirk takes an interesting and literate look at one aspect of
boys’ education, literacy in the late elementary years. He defines
literacy as the “written stories children choose to read and compose”
(p.xv). Coming to the issue from a post-Columbine perspective, Newkirk
finds a rather dismal scene for boys-one in which many of the topics
most attractive to boys (topics involving violence or wild adventures)
are actively discouraged or forbidden in the classroom. Through the
eight chapters of this book, he presents a challenge to the reader to
rethink standard practices that restrict the topics that children are
allowed to read and write about in the classroom. Using data based on
a set of student stories and interviews with around one hundred
children in elementary schools in New Hampshire, Newkirk asserts that
we are failing boys in our educational system by narrowly defining what
topics are suitable for elementary age boys to engage with as they
build their reading and writing skills.
In the first two chapters of Misreading Masculinity, Newkirk
carefully addresses issues of gender equity as central to any
discussion of the education of boys. He delicately and knowledgably
finds a middle ground between the two ends of the gender equity
spectrum, indicating both his agreements and disagreements with such
representative writings as the AAUW’s How Schools Shortchange Girls and
Christine Hoff Sommers’ The War Against Boys. The third chapter takes
an historical look at literacy and the ways in which schools and our
educational system have routinely (if inadvertently) made reading less
engaging for boys through the emphasis on silent reading, on reading as
a way to keep students quiet and still.
In chapter four, he argues against the kind of moral hierarchy
often applied to various forms of literature and writing, encouraging
the reader to think first of engaging boys with a good adventure story
(or with writing about a Simpsons show) as a beginning. Once engaged,
the process of directing boys’ choices of topics for reading or writing
moves more easily.
In the fifth and sixth chapters, he takes on a most difficult
argument-making a case for the relaxation of restrictions on topics for
reading and writing that involve violence. Chapter 5, “Violence and
Innocence,” makes the case that the claims of the effects of media
violence are overblown. Using excerpts from interviews with children,
he lets their words show the reader how boys are capable of making
distinctions between fantasy violence in an adventure movie and actual
violence. Chapter 6, “Misreading Violence,” looks more closely at how
violence is used in boys’ writing, illustrating that the violence in
boys’ stories may be viewed in more positive ways than we have become
accustomed to interpreting it. One boy’s writing experiences are
examined in depth and violence in girls’ writing is briefly described.
In Chapter 7, the power of bodily humor and parody to attract boys
to reading and writing activities is explored, including a number of
examples from popular culture In the final chapter, Newkirk offers
suggestions for opening up the array of topics appropriate for reading
and writing in the elementary school. Newkirk argues that we should
allow boys (and girls) to express themselves via fantasy writing,
cartoons, parodies of TV plots and other topics that come from popular
culture and offers several specific recommendations for action. A
substantial bibliography completes the book.
This is an excellent read. Newkirk writes beautifully and
illustrates his points with such a variety of literary and historical
references that even if the reader is not in agreement with Newkirk’s
arguments and solutions, it is a book that will challenge the reader to
think about his or her own assumptions about boys, about the role of
popular culture in education, and about how both boys and girls can be
thoroughly engaged in and take pleasure from their own writing and the
writing of others
Pages: 202
Price: $19.00
ISBN: : 0-325-00445-5
Reviewed by Carla A. Hendrix, Plattsburgh State University
Tucker, Marc S. & Codding, Judy B., eds. (2002)
The Principal Challenge: Leading and Managing Schools in an Era of
Accountability.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass.
The editors, officers of the National Center on Education and the
Economy (NCEE), at the request of several foundations, commissioned the
papers in this volume to be “useful to a much broader community of
people who share our [editors] interest in the future of school
leadership (p. xii). The editors and the authors agree that the
current state of principals is one of low pay, considerable
responsibility, long hours, little authority, little ability to hire or
fire or even assign classes, and much blame, plus little effective
training for this reality.
The ten chapters are organized into four parts. The first
considers the roles of principals, both instructional and moral. The
second examines training methods in business, the military, and several
professions. Part three summarizes training of principals in other
countries. The final part considers current and past training in this
country, including certification, in-service programs, and professional
associations. The picture presented in all of these is generally
gloomy, noting that fewer people are willing to seek careers as
principals and those who do encounter immense problems.
The results of all this analysis are presented in Appendix A
wherein the editors propose a model for a new way to train educational
leaders; namely, the National Institute for School Leadership (NISL).
Under the auspices of the National Center on Education and the Economy,
NISL’s goal would be “to enable principals to acquire the skills and
knowledge they need to produce substantial gains in student achievement
in their schools” (p. 393). NISL would not train individuals, but
rather would work with districts, schools of education and other
organizations to provide curriculum and technical assistance to the
school districts who in turn would provide faculty and do the training.
All of this is designed for principals with 1-5 years of experience,
using two years of coursework locally and making use of both personal
and Web-based methods of instruction.
This book should be useful to those in university schools of
education, for it has much to say about the need for change there. It
will have less interest to individual principals, but it does provide a
wide review of the literature as well as useful summaries of major
studies, descriptions of successful programs, and listing of the
authorities in the field. Academic libraries serving schools of
education, especially those with school administration programs, should
acquire this title.
Pages: 426
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 0-7879-6447-6
Reviewed by Roland Person, Southern Illinois University Library
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